


Stuff Like That There

by twicedamnedharlot



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Ghouls, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Miscarriage, Non-Chronological, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-09 23:31:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5560036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twicedamnedharlot/pseuds/twicedamnedharlot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based loosely on a kinkmeme prompt.</p><p>October 23rd, 2077 - Nora enters Vault 111 alone with Shaun. Nate never went home again. Both arrive at October 23 2287 by different means, both believing the other dead. </p><p>An AU where Nate's a ghoul, Nora's the SS, and all their friends are aware of each other's existence but are still late to the party.</p><p>*Retooled! Revamped! Re-edited! Default names used because i'm lazy as hell but pls for the love of god don't imagine them as Default White (TM) appearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Ending, a Beginning, and Something Like a Middle

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm kind of conflicted of posting this to the kink meme because it might not be what the op wanted!! But I'm very attached to this story so I defs wanna finish it. This may have multishipping? I still haven't figured out endgame pairs besides Nate/Nora and OP was only clear on leaning towards Nate/John/Nora snugglefests.

Getting shot, Nora stupidly thinks, isn’t at all like the movies.

 

It’s not a blinding pain, it’s the whoosh of all breath leaving your body, the force of the bullet whipping you back so hard you barely register your head cracking on the plastic backing. It’s shock and horror and disbelief and she recalls later that she must have dropped Shaun and that’s the only way the strange woman was able to take him.

 

(It’s the only excuse she can use where she can forgive herself.)

 

The pain, however. She was in pain the moment she woke up. A numbing, aching pain, like all those times she fell asleep on that ratty old couch in her old dorm room. But she was shot right? She thinks so, because the gun flashes, she slams back into her seat, and they take Shaun.

 

The world goes white.

 

-

 

“Miss Nora?” Codsworth floats into the bathroom, a warmed baby bottle in hand. “That man in the ugly coat is at the door again.”

 

“Shoot.” She fluffs her hair in the mirror (should she get a perm again? Nate’s always liked her hair but she remembers his mother’s last call, worried fussing over Shaun getting sick “from all these chemicals” and she shouldn’t be compromising her health, too, after that close call!) and turns back to her butler. “I’ll be right there, thanks.”

 

“You’re welcome, mum.” Codsworth gently careens out of her way, humming jauntily as he disappears into Shaun’s room. 

 

Nora sighs and puts on her best Suburban Housewife smile, a face she’s still getting used to. She and Nate are never going to get the hang of this, she thinks. They’re going to live in suburban infamy until doomsday, with the Neighborhood Coalition telling horror stories of all the lost mutts and ruined cobblers they’re responsible for. “And wrong cars,” she can practically hear Nate tease. Like she’s ever going to sell HER sports car just because she’s a mother now. She didn’t take the L Bar three times and nearly die in childbirth once just to throw her first baby away. 

 

“Gooooood morning!” The Vault-Tec rep trills as she opens the door. He stands in the doorway, hunched in around his clipboard, eyes darting past her shoulder. “Er, is he in today, ma’am?”

 

Suburban Housewife smile in place, Nora tries not to feel guilty when she replies with “Nope. Just missed him.” By a couple of hours, if she had glanced at the clock. She vaguely remembers Nate kissing her behind the ear at dawn, promising to swing back with one of his friends and drive them all to the veteran’s hall at noon. 

 

The rep grimaces with his smile, a slight tightening of his eyes and a little too much teeth in his grin. “That’s. Unfortunate. Will he be back soon?”

 

“Um.” She glances at her empty wrist. Smiles back at the rep. “You know what? You’ve been given the runaround for too long. I could just fill it out for him?”

 

She reaches out to take the clipboard when the rep jumps, stutters, eyes flicking back and forth from her outstretched hand down to his own. “Uh.”

 

They stare at each other for an uncomfortable moment. The rep grimaces another smile. Nora does her best to smile back. She tries not to jerk when she hears Shaun start crying down the hall, counting down from ten until she hears Codsworth cooing over him.

 

“I, uh.” The rep coughs. Fidgets with the edge of his jacket sleeves. Glances down the street with a pained look. “You know what,” he says slowly. “I think, this time, it would be for the best. These are-- _ urgent _ times, after all.”

 

He hands her the clipboard and a Vault-tec pen.

 

The form is… well, the basic things are there on the first page. Social security, age, legal status, etc. The second page is more of a health form and at Prescriptions she wonders if she should make a grab-and-go bag of all the essentials for her post-partum and Nate’s PTSD and withdrawal. Some of the questions though--how much radiation are you reasonably exposed to daily? Have you been offered cybernetic implants? Average sleep cycles, vision test results, IQ stats. She leaves some of them blank and answers as best she can, hurriedly handing the clipboard back.

 

“Thank you,” the rep breathes rapturously, like she’s done him the biggest favor. “I’m just--going to head on over to the vault now.” He’s running backwards, tripping over his feet and his too long slacks and Nora barely has time to say goodbye before he climbs into his cramped van and speeds away.

 

“Mum?” Nora jumps, closing the door and turning to Codsworth with a smile. “I’ve changed young sir’s diaper, but I think he’s craving that maternal affection you’re so good at.”

 

“Thank you, Codsworth, you’re such a help.”

 

-

 

The doctor hasn’t taken his eyes off his notes since he came into the room. “I wouldn’t recommend going through with childbirth.”

Nora tries not to throw the chunky necklace Nate got her on their fifth date at his face. She hates being pregnant if it means all her lessons on staying calm while pissed have been thrown out the window. “I don’t think I could handle an abortion.”

The doctor gives her a look over the rim of his glasses, something close to pitying but still cold. “And I don’t think you could handle you or your child or both of you dying, but that’s just my professional opinion.”

Nora breathes in slowly. “I just. Having a kid means so much to my husband. He just got back from Alaska. It’s the first time I’ve seen him so happy.”

“I’ve heard there’s a thing called adoption. At your age alone, there would be considerable risks to your health during the pregnancy, not to mention the failure rate of giving birth at the end of nine months.”

Nora smiles prettily and tries not to kick him because her feet are up in stirrups and the man just had his fingers in her vagina in what was probably one of the most uncomfortable checkup she’s had to sit through.

“I need this baby.” She needs Nate back, really. She’s never wanted kids, hated the health videos in school, and felt lucky when she was told at twenty-seven that conceiving would be hard but hey at least the Plague hadn’t killed her. But she misses Nate, who deployed with a smile and a wink and came back haunted and empty. She wants the old Nate back. She thought she saw him again when he held her and cried when she told him she was pregnant. Every day she’s pregnant is another day he tries to be better, going to therapy and taking his meds--if not for himself, than at least for her and the baby.

She wants him back, anyway she can have him.

“And I need my patients to listen to my advice when I say that I can’t in good conscience allow a woman with her medical history to have a child with no preparation.” He snaps his gloves off and sighs. “I’ll give you a week to think about it and talk it over with your husband. But a decision must be made soon.”

He leaves soon after (a total fifteen minutes of the four hours she was there) and while Nora puts her dress back on, she dumps the business card down the bottom of her purse and thinks about calling that other doctor in the next town over. She’s 39, married for love, made her own way through law school, and she’s invincible. She’s having the baby. She gets to choose her family this time.

  
  


-

 

Two weeks later she miscarries.

 

-

 

Waking up from cryo-sleep the second time hurts just as much as the first. Her muscles ache in that bone deep way and she’s much more clear on the fact that she’s been shot because the blood had immediately frozen and stiffened around the wound. It feels like the damaged tissues scrapes and cracks when she slumps forward and hits the floor, knees taking the brunt of the hit.

 

She’s dying--of thirst and hypothermia because she can’t stop shaking (or is that blood loss). She stumbles out of the frozen tomb when she realizes that everyone around her is dead. She finds much of the same in the next set rooms.

 

She stumbles and shivers her way around the empty, rusting hallways until she collapses in an old security office across from a window where she definitely saw  _ something _ crawl across it. She finds a dusty stimpack and she can barely hold it steady long enough to push it into her shoulder.

 

It feels like agony and she’s not sure she’s doing this right. The medicine feels warm in her blood and she watches the ice still clinging to her vault suit melt. She counts her fingers and wiggles her toes. Tries to move she shoulder and guesses that even though it hurts, it’s a good sign that she can slightly move it.

 

She looks at the terminal on the desk and tries to push a little more stim into her. Wonders if it has a map to the medical wing on it. Wonders what happened to the others.

 

She feels worse after reading.

 

-

 

When Shaun is born, Nate hovers around the little glass box that keeps him protected and breathing.

 

A miracle, his mother wept over Nora, patting her face and fixing her blankets. A gift from God. It’s been three days since then and Nate’s brother says she still hasn’t left church.

 

Shaun wasn’t on their list of names. But it’s Irish and Nate’s uncle says it means a Gracious Gift and Nora, still delirious from having looked death in the face, takes it.

 

Her own mother makes a subtle jab at it in the note that came with the Mr. Handy that was express delivered to their new house.

 

-

 

It takes two days for her to leave the vault.

 

She has trouble with the roaches on top of dealing with her arm (they can fly at her fucking  _ face _ ). Finding the stimpacks is a mercy but she collapsed on the Overseer’s bed immediately after jabbing the first one in. When she woke up after a nightmarish sleep, she read the idiot’s terminal, took another stim, then slept some more.

 

There’s water but no food. Her hands shake as she tries to load the gun like Nate showed her. Won’t use it on the roaches. Can’t keep it steady. She drops the ammo twice. She changes out of the vault suit she’s wearing into a spare one she found in the barracks and throws the bloodied one into a corner.

 

She entered the vault with Shaun and watched the world end with a bang. She leaves it as the tomb it’s become; armed with a baton, a gun, a handful of bobby pins, a new suit because she can’t find her fucking clothes, a stimpack, and what is most likely the last pack of cigarettes on earth.

 

She’s going to find her son, she thinks as she opens the vault with her new Pip-Boy. She has to.

 

The elevator arrives at the surface.

 

She wonders when life is going to stop suckerpunching her.

 

The world is dead. Like the vault. Her neighbors. The staff. The trees. Nate--

 

She stumbles down the road, staring numbly at the skeletons of people she remembered standing before it all ended. She kicks open crates that were left behind for supplies--more ammo, no food. She doesn’t know where she’s going. She doesn’t know what she’ll need.

 

She heads home.

 

The bridge, surreally, is still there. The bickering couple she had passed left no corpses. She doesn’t know what that means. There’s a bush of strange flowers growing near it.

 

The houses are still there, collapsed and in ruins, but there. The neon green grass her neighbors had been so proud of is gone, straggly bushes overgrown and taking over the sidewalk.

 

Except her bushes. Those are trimmed. Codsworth gives an absent swipe with his leaf cutter, making the tops even and perfectly parallel to the broken window of her bedroom.

 

Codsworth.

 

( _ Codsworth… stay safe, honey. _ She could see her tears in his polished metal that morning--that day? There’s a layer of rust but he’s still grey. He’s missing one of his arm attachments. There’s dents and scratches on his head.)

 

She opens her mouth and feels her throat crack around her voice. She coughs.

 

Codsworth raises his razor (in greeting?), slowly turning towards her.

 

His eyestalks refocus for several seconds.

 

“Mum? Is that-- is that really  _ you _ ?”

 

She feels like crying. She’s so thirsty. She coughs some more and Codsworth flails. 

 

“Oh, mum, you must be--”

 

“ _ You’re still here. _ ” She’s horrified. At least, whatever she’s feeling, beneath the numbness, the shock of finding the world dead and her son kidnapped,  _ must _ be horror. How long did he wait here?

 

“Well of course I’m still here!” he crows triumphantly. “Not like a little atomic radiation would slow down the pride of General Atomics.”

 

“So others--” She sees nothing out there, in the desolation, and yet. And yet. “Others… could still be alive too.”

 

“Possibly! Although, best not let the hubby see you like  _ this _ ,” he chuckles and it...rankles her. “Where is sir, by the by?”

 

“He didn’t come home?” (A kiss goodbye.  _ Go back to sleep. Be back soon, love you. _ )

  
“No, he-- Oh. No, I’m afraid not, mum.”


	2. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surviving the apocalypse is better with friends both old and new. Then there's a fight scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what i'm doing anymore :^)

“Followed by...flashes--yes, followed by flashes. Sounds of explosions. We’re--We’re trying to get confirmation…”

 

Her vision tunnels. Shaun fusses in her arms. The TV’s reception slides and wobbles across the screen, making the news anchor’s face mutate grotesquely.

 

“Confirmed reports--”

 

“Nate,” she chokes out. Nate said he’d come back. He always came back.

 

“Mum, you have to--you have to go to the vault,” Codsworth metal appendages brushes her. He sounds like he’s going to cry.

 

“I have to wait for Nate,” she responds dumbly, staring into the Please Standby as static clicks over it. 

 

“Mum. Mum,  _ please _ .”

 

She looks away, at her kitchen, the notes on the door, dishes stacked neatly by the sink. Shaun wiggles in her arms. “He might be, he might be on his way. I’ll--”

 

She stumbles out the door.

 

The neighborhood is in chaos. She jogs past her neighbors, screaming at each other as they stuff belongings in their car. Some hold each other and cry. She nearly trips on an overturned tricycle.

 

There’s a tank blocking the exit to Sanctuary. An officer waves her down. “Ma’am,” he shouts over the noise of panic. “Ma’am, if you’re with the program you have to head to the vault.”

 

“My husband--” She feels slow and stupid. The sky is beautiful and she hears birdsong. Does the world not know it’s dying?

 

“Will most likely meet you there, now please move.”

 

A car, a red convertible, careens past them, driving onto the sidewalk and clipping the tank. Shaun screams at the noise. The officer shouts, hand going to a baton and charging at the car as it runs down a mailbox to get past them all and out of the community.

 

“Shhh…” she soothes, tripping over her feet. She jogs down the dirt path and over the rickety bridge that was constructed for the hiking trail behind their community. There are clothes strewn about the path, an overturned suitcase that landed in the stream.

 

She hears the people crowding the gates before she sees them. One woman is sobbing, clutching at her green dress, face red and splotchy. The man in the ugly yellow suit is yelling and waving at the soldiers in power armor.

 

“I AM Vault-tec,” he yells at an impassive officer that stands between the two hulking statues.

 

“If you’re not on the list, you’re not getting in.”

 

“That’s absurd!” The rep argues. He takes a step forward, as if he were to march past them anyway. He’s confronted with a spinning minigun that makes the whole crowd scream and cower. A few take off running.

 

“Al _ right _ !” he stumbles backwards, nearly crashing into her. “ _ I’m reporting this! _ ” He screams over his shoulder.

 

Nora’s shaking now but she pushes her way to the front. “I’m on the list,” she gasps, “I’m on the list and so is my husband--”

 

The officer looks down at his clipboard, the same as the one the Vault-tec rep had just an hour ago. “Male, female, infant,” he says. He scribbles something on it. “Male not present. Step forward and make your way to the vault.”

 

“My husband--”

 

“Step forward and make your way to the vault.” His eyes are trained forward, not seeing her. He’s watching the crowd behind her as they scream at him. She pushes past him and keeps running.

 

-

 

It’s day five in the ruins of Sanctuary Hills. Day seven since she woke up two hundred years into the future. Tomorrow’s Halloween.

 

So far, she spends her time staring at the date on her Pip-Boy for hours: 2287.  _ A bit over two hundred and ten, mum, _ Codsworth had cheerily told her. Her stomach swoops violently at the thought.

 

She promised Codsworth days ago that she would head into Concord to look for help. But who could survive after two hundred years of nuclear fallout, with giant cockroaches and stinging flies as big as her head? 

 

Nora opens a new tab on her Pip-Boy; under Notes, she types  _ October 30th, 2287 - Nothing. _ She’s written the same for the last five entries.

 

All in all, life in post-apocalyptia is pretty boring, despite the brief run ins with mutant bugs that want to kill you in retribution for all their ancestors that you squashed. Nora’s barely left the couch since she got here.

 

No. That’s not right. She knows what this is, saw it in Nate when he came back, helping him when he asked for it, supporting him when she didn’t know what else to do. The difference here is that she doesn’t know how to take care of herself when there’s no one depending on her.

 

_ Shaun _ , she tries telling herself.  _ Shaun’s still out there. He needs you. _

 

She raises her leg off the couch, settling it on the floor. Puts it back up after a moment, feeling awkward and scared.

 

“Please,” she whispers. To herself, to a god she doesn’t believe in, to the world that’s so much emptier. “Please get up.”

 

She rolls off the couch, landing on the floor with a soft thud. Dust particles lift and scatter in the air. She can hear Codsworth whirring in one of the bedrooms, a clicking of old circuitry. She hopes he doesn’t come in here.

 

“For Nate’s sake, at least,” she puffs against the grime. Forces herself up to her knees. Then her feet. Stands in her living room facing the window. “Concord and back. Just a bit of walking. Figure it out from there.”

 

She salvages an old backpack that her and Nate used on a hiking expedition. It’s frayed and worn from exposure but she can carry the bobby pins, stimpacks, and ammo she’s collected from the neighborhood. She carries her gun in hand.

 

She starts walking.

 

-

 

“Better,” Nate says, flicking the switch to bring the target sheet closer to examine.

 

Seven out of ten shots hit the torso. Only three in the center mass. No headshots, but only because she saw Nate wince that first time it happened. Told her it was just because the torso is a better target, might knock ‘em down with force of the bullet. She knows better, though.

 

_ Better _ , she thinks, clicking the safety on and carefully putting the gun down on the bench. Her arms don’t shake after the recoil, doesn’t flinch much before pulling the trigger. Better, but not preferable.

 

Nate’s been taking her to target practice since he came back. Well, no. It started after he took to doing freelance work again, taking pictures of the food riots down at the military outposts and selling them to the Globe or other papers. He tells her it’s not Alaska and she believes him.

 

“How do you feel about moving?” she asks suddenly. She’s watching him, like she does in court. Not directly, because it gives her away, but she keeps an eye on him.

 

He slows, carefully stringing up a new target, a smirk sliding across his face. “And lose the scenic view of our--oh man what did you call it to get the price lowered--”

 

“That’s not it.” It’s a risk, even if it’s Nate. “What I mean is, it’s not a lot of room. For a family. Like we never really talked about.”

 

There. She said it. What she hasn’t been able to say since the hospital. What neither of them have been able to say since the doctor left them sitting together in that cold room.

 

He stops completely, eyes flicking downward guiltily and it makes her throat clench painfully. God, law school didn’t prepare her for this.

 

When he doesn’t say anything, she starts. “I didn’t want kids, Nate. Jesus, you’ve met my mother. I’ve always been terrified of turning into my parents.” She breathes in. Out. In again. “But I’ve wanted a family for longer than I can comfortably say, y’know? I got to choose you and you chose me, thank god for that. And I still can’t thank you enough for giving me  _ your _ family and I know it’s safer, adopting, and honestly I’m not against it, I can barely take cases that remind me of my own baggage without doing something stupid for the kid’s sake but I keep having these...  _ thoughts _ and I just think for me to be  _ okay _ , to think  _ we’re  _ okay we should probably have a kid between the two of us  _ just once _ and then we’ll, like, adopt all the kids we can possibly fit in whatever house we get our hands on--” 

 

She had a plan, dammit. She wrote it down before coming here and rehearsed it at work and before bed and driving around the city. There are tears in her eyes and she’s so ashamed she can’t even look at him and the only thing that stops her

 

is Nate. Falling into her like a tree cut down and she barely has time to catch him before he does and he’s wrapping her up tight in his arms, one hand coming up to catch in her hair that he buries his face in. His breathing is ragged and she goes stock still, arms awkwardly coming around his sides like she might actually hurt this mountain of a man.

 

“I love you,” he manages to say. “I love you so much and I don’t--” He cuts himself off and makes a strange noise. “I don’t need kids to love you any more. I think--” he laughs and it sounds wet and desperate. “I think that’s impossible.”

 

She buries her face into his shoulder. Some adult couple they are, completely unable to look each other in the face for this. “Whatever happens, don’t let me turn into my mom.”

 

Nate laughs again, arms going tighter around her that she has to stand on her toes. “That’s also impossible. You’re nothing like her.”

 

“I want--” She’s making a choice and it still feels impossible to her. That she’ll be responsible for something so small and vulnerable. “I want to love them. No matter what.”

 

“Yeah. That won’t be a problem.”

 

They stay like that for a long time.

 

\--

 

Nora gets as far as the other side of the bridge before wanting to turn back immediately.

 

There’s a dead body in the road.

 

Two of them really. One’s human, a man with a mangled arm lying on his side, a tire iron fallen from his grasp. She’s not sure what the other body is.

 

There are maggots crawling in the open wounds of the dead man so she swallows her bile and examines the other dead thing closely. It looks like dead dog, a mummified hairless corpse that’s been out in the sun too long.

 

She looks at the man, regrets it, and turns away, walking past both of them. A dead dog killing a grown man? If she can take away anything from it, it’s that there are people out here and there might be zombie dogs killing them off.

 

She giggles hysterically, tripping over a pothole. No, don’t think about it.

 

She tromps past the Red Rocket gas sign, still not thinking about it when-- _ Woof! _

 

She freezes.

 

A beautiful German Shepherd runs up to greet her.

 

They stare at each other for a minute, said beautiful dog wagging it’s tail beatifically. 

 

“You’re…” she crouches down to his level, offering up her hand to his nose which he sniffs interestedly and comes closer to be petted. “You don’t seem so bad.” She says after a while.

 

He barks his agreement.

 

“Well, if you’d like to join me, I’d appreciate it.”

 

The dog seems to smile.

 

\--

 

“Okay, so I know you said you were getting a dog.”

 

“Yup.”

 

“That’s a... dog?”

 

“Probably?”

 

The thing is sitting on their new couch and chewing on its own leg.

 

She wants to be openminded. “Where’d you get him?”

 

“Went to the pound and asked which one’s been there the longest. Brought out this guy.”

 

“Okay. Well.” Well. The alleged dog stares into the abyss and continues grinding down on its leg.

 

“We’re going to have to assume the leg thing is new because the people there didn’t mention this.”

 

“Okay.”

 

A week later, the dog steals a baseball out of a kid’s hand and escapes into the woods behind their house, never to be seen again. Nate and Nora only wish that he’s happy, wherever he is.

 

\--

 

The dog, who she still can’t name because she’s never been good at naming things, is a pretty good early warning system. He growled at the air, hunkering down, just seconds before  _ giant mole rats _ popped out of the ground and started swarming them. She was thankful. She’s not so thankful when he races off into the firefight taking place in the streets of Concord and takes down a woman in spiked armor when Nora herself was ready to just turn around and leave. Write anything outside of Sanctuary as a lost cause.

 

“Wait!” she yells after him with no effect. She keeps her aim steady and fires at the center mass of a man who tries to swing at her dog with a bloody baseball bat. She definitely doesn’t think about that.

 

They push forward together, the dog holding down an opponent while she fires a few rounds into them ( _ they were firing at me first, it’s only self-defense _ ). That’s when she hears it.

 

“Up on the balcony!”

 

She’s crouched in the hardware store’s doorway, hiding from a gunman’s errant shots from around the corner. There’s a man in a cowboy hat up there and he fires a laser shot at the enemy closing in on her.  _ Bwaaam. _ Oh, so that’s what that sound was.

 

“I’ve got settlers inside,” he yells down at her. “We’re outnumbered and we need help. Grab the laser musket,  _ please! _ ”

 

She must be crazy. She trusts him and she grabs the musket (a  _ musket _ ) from the dead body and the ammo lying next to it and runs inside.

 

He could have at least warned her about heading into kill box. 

 

She barely has time to barrel into the next room to avoid getting shot and moves erratically through the maze of dummies and splintered exhibits. She doesn’t know how she manages but she reaches the upper level mostly intact but winded (one guy hits her across the face with a pair of brass knuckles and she only survives because her dog tackles the guy into a post).

 

“Hey,” she croaks at the last locked door. “I think everyone’s dead.”

 

The door opens and the man on the balcony lets her in. Calls himself Preston Garvey, last of the Minutemen (what) and he really is watching over a roomful of people who look as traumatized as her.

 

It only starts to get really weird when she walks over to the woman her dog is sitting with.

 

“Dogmeat sure did find us some help. Just look at ya.” An old lady in a faded blue turban smiles dreamily at her. With her matted fuzzy pink slippers she almost looks comfortable in the condemned attic of the museum, eerily calm in the face of all that’s happening around her.

 

“He’s your dog?” Nora’s not sure what kind of a name Dogmeat is but she isn’t really one to say anything on those sorts of things. Still, she feels a pull of something at the prospect of having to give up the first friendly face in this brave new world.

 

“Aw, he ain’t my dog,” the old lady slurs. She sways slightly as she talks with her hands.  “No sir. Dogmeat, he’s what you’d call his own man. You can’t own a free spirit like that. But he chooses his friends, and sticks with ‘em. He’ll stay by you now. I  _ saw  _ it.”

 

“You...saw it?” Nora asks with a sinking feeling, the kind she got when her more eccentric clients were about to make her case a lot more difficult for her.

 

“It’s the chems, kid,” she smiles with yellowed teeth. “They give ole Mama Murphy the Sight. Been that way for as long as I can remember.”

 

Oh no, she thinks at the same time “What’s the Sight?” slips out of her mouth.

 

“I can see a bit of what was and what will be,” Mama Murphy whispers in a reverent voice. “Even what is  _ right now _ . And right now... I can see there’s something coming. Drawn by the noise and the chaos. And it’s… angry.”

 

The look in the old woman’s eye is… Nora’s stomach churns uneasily. She saw the same look in Nate’s face when the nightmares got bad, something that existed only in the headspace of someone at their worse; the dark places of one’s own imagining. 

 

“Could you be more  _ specific _ ?” she asks, because  _ angry _ doesn’t narrow it down from all those who’ve shot her today.

 

But Mama Murphy shakes her head and Nora’s almost relieved to have it dropped right then but Mama Murphy keeps shaking, eyes going dim as she looks beyond Nora as if looking into her soul. “No,” she says slowly. “No, that was fear and greed from desperate people, kid. What I see… I see…” She starts shaking in her oversized blue coat, curling in on herself on the couch. “Oh it’s… it’s  _ horrible _ kid. Claws and teeth and  _ horns _ . The very face of Death itself.” Then like a puppet without strings, she slumps back into the cushions, tension leaving her body entirely; slack jawed and vulnerable. When she opens her eyes again, it’s the same hollow look, but it’s no longer searching _. _

 

“That’s all I can manage. That’s all,” she pants. “I need to rest now.” She pushes herself back up into a sitting position and gives her a look that’s downright frightful. “And you have a job to do.”

 

Nora leaves immediately after that.

 

\--

 

The plan, Nora thinks hysterically, is not what she thought it was going to be. 

 

(Although, to be fair, she didn’t really think about it beyond Get Fusion Core → Put It In Power Armor → Get Minigun → Survive?)

 

Getting the fusion core was easy. Sure, it took a few minutes and a couple of reboots to get the right password but it’s nothing compared to this:

 

The rusted, dented power armor stands unimpressively next to the crashed vertibird. The floor around it caves in subtly from the years of taking its weight.

 

“Of course,” she chuckles, instead of screaming into the sky. Dogmeat’s wagging tail beats enthusiastically into the back of her leg. “It’s been two hundred years. Of course it would be practically falling apart.”

 

She shoves (and hammers) the fusion core into place. Okay. Easy. Turns the locking wheel open with a shrieking noise as rust comes away. Concerning. But easy. Gets in. Tight. But easy. Shuffles forward carefully, half afraid she’ll fall through the roof and takes the minigun and attached ammo. A lot easier than even Sturges said it would be.

 

As she approaches the edge of the museum roof, a raider leans around a chimney on the opposite roof and fires at her.  _ Ping _ the bullet goes, ricocheting off her ineffectually.  _ Bwaaam _ goes Preston’s laser musket, frying the asshole to dust.

 

Nora breathes in deep and lets it out, eyeing the approaching mob coming in from the north. “Okay. Doable.”

 

Five minutes later, she falls off the roof.

 

\--

 

When Nate comes back because of medical discharge, there’s a lot they have to learn together.

 

They rearrange the bedroom and switch places in bed so Nate can be closest to the wall and furthest from the door. She gets rid of her blackout curtains so Nate can tell what time it is when he opens his eyes.

 

When they still live in that small apartment, they have an agreement to set aside money to replace all their shitty furniture with cheap and easily assembled replacements. Nora sits by with a glass of wine reading off instructions while Nate pretends he knows what he’s doing and puts it together how he thinks it’s supposed to go and tries not to think of putting together turrets or recalibrating plasma fences.

 

They talk about a lot of things during those nights, about how Nate puts himself together after war. But not much about that one time Nate had to pry out a dead friend from his power armor and hike out of the Alaskan wilderness alone, trampling over dead bodies buried in snow (“Could barely tell which side they belonged to. It probably doesn’t matter.”). He will talk haltingly at first, then jokingly, of how he stepped on a plasma mine (one of their own) just five miles from the camp and nearly blew off his leg. 

 

(If, perhaps, some child hears he’s a soldier and asks if he’s ever put on power armor, Nate will smile tightly and nod. “Just once.” Nora’s always had a knack for redirecting conversation.)

 

Nate’s limp is psychological, the professionals say. On good days he ditches the cane and walks hand in hand with her around town. On bad days, he stays on the couch and she gets out her expensive body cream and methodically smoothes the muscles of his knees, calves, and ankles back into place.

 

\--

 

Nora reloads the minigun carefully. She drops it twice.

 

Dogmeat whines, ears low, tail to the grown. 

 

“I know, I know,” her voice, an electronic whine to it. “Gimme a sec.” It’s a lot harder to pick up ammo and fiddle with weapons with power armor fingers.

 

The ground shakes. Nora grips the reloaded minigun tightly. Dogmeat slinks behind her.

 

Down the street, where the last of the raiders are hiding behind sandbags, there’s steam rising from the metal sewage gate.

 

One of them, a man, stands up from his dispense position and starts firing downwards, yelling indistinctly. The grate smashes open. The man, he--

 

Nora’s vision tunnels as the man is sliced into three, guts slopping out of his open cavity in a red cascade. A creature--an  _ abomination _ of claws and teeth and  _ horns _ roars out of hell.

 

“Dogmeat,” she chokes. “Dogmeat-- _ run! _ ”

 

Her new unfortunately loyal companion whines loudly, baring its teeth ineffectually at the thing currently tearing through people-- _ raiders _ like cardboard.

 

“ _ Go! _ ” she bellows, and Dogmeat takes off behind her.

 

The thing is taking care of the last raider and all she’s got is a half empty minigun, a banged up suit of t-45 power armor, and the distant laser sniping of a man with the safety of a balcony.

 

It turns on her.

 

It’s close enough to a truck lying perpendicular in a road and she knows from enough ambulance chasing cases that triggering a meltdown should be easy enough.  _ Should be _ . She sprays bullets, dividing them up between the devil and the truck and when the nuclear core goes, she can feel the heat of it reaching all the way to the front of the Museum.

 

“Fuck,” she wheezes, staring at the body as it stumbles to the ground. She runs forward just to get as many of her bullets as she can into it. To be sure.

 

It gets back up. Then it tosses up the carcass of the smoldering wreck up and behind its head and  _ roars. _

 

“ _ Fuck _ .” The minigun clicks. She’s out.

 

A blur of brown and gold races past her and dives at the beast’s arm, snarling. Dogmeat hangs on with his clenched jaw as the beast waves it around in the air.

 

“Get the hell away from my dog!” Nora charges at it, ditching the now useless minigun to the side. No more weapons, but she’s got fists.

 

Dogmeat lets go and dashes out of the way from a set of claws that swings down on him, giving her the distraction she needs to belt it across the face.

 

It rips into her so fast and hard her chestplate is torn off. She screams, in horror, in fury, punching it again in the throat with her other fist.

 

_ Okay, this was stupid _ .

 

Beyond the dog yelping and the beast roaring, she can hear two guns coming from the balcony and she laughs, kicking and screaming and punching with everything she’s got.

 

It’s Dogmeat who gets it, or maybe a combined effort of him going for the throat, jerking it in one direction, and her tearing its arm in another to divert its claws away from her exposed torso. In any case, it’s throat rips open and she hears a sickening crack somewhere and it falls.

 

She hears nothing but her and Dogmeat panting in the sweltering sun.

 

Her suit beeps,  _ 15% power left  _ it tells her. The monster stays down this time.

 

\--

 

After fifteen minutes of a muted panic attack inside her power armor and some helpful scavenging overseen by a questionably perky Dogmeat, she heads back inside the Museum of Freedom to find the survivors huddled in the lobby.

 

“Stop fussin’, Preston,” Mama Murphy sighs and Nora’s pretty sure he only does so when he sees her walking up.

 

“Man, that was some  _ crazy _ stunt you pulled. I’m just glad you’re with us.” Preston’s grinning at her like Christmas came early and she’s glad he can’t see her behind the mask because she’s pretty sure she’s making some kind of scary panicked face that’s permanently set in because of that encounter.

 

“Yeah, that... sure was something,” she chuckles nervously. “Is everyone alright now?”

 

“Yeah, but listen,” and he turns serious, reaching into his pocket. “I know we never agreed on a price, but in the Minutemen friends look out for each other. Here, for everything you’ve done for us.”

 

He hands her a small bag that jingles and it takes her a second to realize it’s some sort of currency. “I--” she coughs, licks her lips. “I didn’t do this for the money.”

 

It scares her a bit that he looks so genuinely surprised by this. But he smiles, an echo of his victory grin. “Huh. You’re a rare sort. Sorry, I’m just… used to everyone being in it for themselves.” His smile gets wistful as he looks at her, standing there in ruined armor and blood. “You know, you kind of remind me of my friends. The Minutemen who actually gave themselves and their lives for something bigger than them. You could come with us, you know, to Sanctuary? We could use the help.”

 

She stumbles over that, not sure how to bring up the fact that that’s where she was headed anyway without giving herself away. Never knew how to trust others. “And do what exactly?”

 

“Be strong, like you’ve been so far,” Mother Murphy rasps. “You’ve got a destiny, I’ve seen it myself. And I know your pain.”

 

Nora’s skin crawls, because even when she’s slumped into the booth like she is, it’s like she’s looking into her. “What do you mean?”

 

“You’re a woman out of time,” she drawls, eyes hazing back. “Out of hope. But all’s not lost. I can feel your son’s energy and he’s alive.” Her eyes tick over Nora, seeing but not there, and Nora’s heart jumps into her throat. 

 

“My son--” and it’s like something crashing in her, an orchestra surging. “My son’s alive? Where is he?”

 

Mama Murphy sighs, eyes sliding away. “That’s all I got kid. I don’t know where he is but his energy--it’s there.” She shudders, her small body hunching back in. “Like radiation, you could say. All I can tell you is where to start looking. Found or lost, all roads lead to Diamond City.”

 

“Biggest settlement in the Commonwealth. Best place to start, if anywhere,” Preston finishes for her. “Now, let’s get moving to Sanctuary before we lose the light.”

 

“Why?” the only other woman, Marcy, snarls from her seat next to her husband. “All we’ve got is Mama Murphy’s bogus vision of a place while she was stoned out of her gourd and that’s what we go with? Another wild goose chase into the wastes?”

 

Preston starts to argue, but it’s Sturges who talks over everyone. 

 

“Now hold, let’s settle down. Marcy, if you’ve got a better plan, I think we’d all like to hear it.”

 

Marcy gives him a withering glare before turning it to the floor.

 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Sturges sighs. “So unless anyone’s got any other suggestions…”   
  


Nora coughs. “Actually, if it helps, I just came from Sanctuary. It’s not too far of a walk.”

 

That changes the mood completely, the news causing Sturges to smile and Marcy to look only half as baleful as she usually does.

 

“Well, it seems we have a bonafide plan then.”

 

And so they went.

 

\--

 

The sun has set by the time they get to the bridge, or at least by the time Nora arrives. The group behind her has stopped to admire the statue outside of town. Without a fusion core, the power armor’s gait is heavy and she wants to cross the bridge as quickly as she can without collapsing it.

 

Codsworth is waiting by the sign.

 

“Miss Nora,” he greets. He waits patiently while she exits out of the armor, leaving it standing as a broken sentry next to the trash can. She’ll move it later, she just needs to feel air on her skin again. Breathe in something not from that rusted hell.

 

“Hey, Codsworth. The group coming up is with me.” She fluffs out the sweaty matted hair that sticks to her skull and neck, patting Dogmeat as he steps forward to investigate her butler.

 

“New friends, mum?”

 

“Yeah,” she’s surprised that it feels genuine as she looks behind her, the glowing beam of Preston’s musket coming into view. 

 

“Can’t have enough of those these days,” he says cheerfully. “I’ll go fetch some refreshments.”

 

She’s not sure what passes for refreshments in the apocalypse but she can at least help play the hostess, a comfortable armor from days long past.

 

When Preston gets close, he gives out a long low whistle. “This… really isn’t that bad. Should’ve listened to Mama Murphy from the beginning. I think we could settle down here, make it our own. What do you think?”

 

She looks at the broken down convertible that her neighbors had been packing up on the day the bombs fell, screaming, wondering if the coast would be far enough to avoid the devastation. She looks at the dilapidated house that Cindi Lowell lived in, with her two spoiled brats, and thought she would be saved by “pure” genetics and genteel living.

 

She thinks of Nate, building a crib and getting up at 7 in the morning on Wednesdays just to cut the grass himself, to take care of a house that they owned together.

 

“It was… good. When I lived here before the war.”

 

“What war?” he asks and Nora makes a choice.

 

“The one two hundred years ago,” she answers slowly, watching him closely.

 

She can see it click for him, piece by piece, his eyes going over her vault suit carefully. “Wait, so you mean--You’re not just a vault dweller, but an  _ original  _ one?”

 

She nods, “Yeah. They put me in this...pod, I guess. Froze me over. It was just me and Shaun in there until someone kidnapped him. Nate, my husband, he…” She gesticulates, desperate not to put into words. “He was in the city when the bombs fell. Codsworth, my butler, you’ll meet him, he said he never came home.”

 

“But a house isn’t a home without a heart to put in it.”

 

Both her and Preston jump and turn as one to Mama Murphy who had snuck up on them. 

 

“Scarred and ruined, but you’ll find it again. It’ll just take some time. You’ll come home again.” She shuffles past them, fuzzy pink slippers slapping at her socked heels. 

 

“Whatever you do,” Preston whispers when Mama Murphy has rounded the corner. “Please try and not give her any chems. She says she needs it for the sight but at her age--”

  
“Yeah,” Nora replies shakily. “I could do without any more of that.”


	3. Home Again, Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nate finally shows up (but never actually left.)

Finding out a good majority of your friends have been wiped out by the Institute isn’t the worst news Nate’s ever had to deal with, but it comes pretty close. Right now he’s up against the vines obscuring the back entrance, peering down the scope to Slocum Joe’s. It’s a terrible hiding spot and it’s killing his knees to be in this position for so long.

 

No coursers in the store front, five maybe six gen 2s. ( _ Work crew going through scraps? Too obvious to be waiting for stragglers _ ) Those turrets in the windows were probably salvaged from Tom’s wrecks ( _ poor kid, probably got out. Des kept him near the exit, too valuable to lose _ ). There are clumps of debris in the road and Nate’s got a feeling it’s not just rubble. Mines, a lot of them. Too many to take a frontal assault. ( _ If there had been a courser--there had to have been one. No need to use the back entrance for an attack like this. Didn’t even set up traps by the only other exit. But who was it this time? Who-- _ )

 

Nate’s knee gives and he slumps with it, falling into the ditch wall. Carefully, he sets up the sniper rifle beside him, thinks of all the other guns he should be pulling out; sitting out in the open like this. No partner to tell him to get off his ass. ( _ Deacon, you fucker. _ )

 

The night sky is beautiful. Took a few years after the world went boom, when the major fires started going out, that he remembered to start looking up at the sky. The milky way stretching across would have been breathtaking if it didn’t also remind him how incredibly alone they were. How alone  _ he _ was. Again.

 

He should go. As far as Nate knows, he’s the last of the Railroad. All his safehouse maps were at the Switchboard--

 

“Shit.  _ Shit. _ ” He slams his skull back against the dirt wall. It was him. If not him, initially, he definitely helped. If they got into the vault, those fucking bastards would find all his notes, all the safehouses now and before and any future possibility, he  _ should have fucking coded them _ .

 

He breathes out, nearly weeping. His fault.

 

In the distance, somewhere in Corvega’s direction, he can hear gunfire.

 

Start back at Goodneighbor. John told him he got out some of the really old stuff that he made after he got kicked from Diamond City. The rest might still be with the upper stand families, could point him in the direction of someone who could sneak those out. But it might be enough. Remembers a few places Tommy scouted, but didn’t put on maps. ( _ Too many unknowns. Too much to take on alone. Time’s ticking fast. _ )

 

The gunfire continues, a distant boom of a missile launcher.

 

Actually.

 

_ That was too close. _

 

Crawling across the ditch, Nate peaks over the edge with his rifle.

 

That idiot on the walkway. Agents had been keeping clear of that area, originally because of the ferals. The raider camp’s new, stretching themselves too far around Lexington but they seem to enjoy having the power armored asshole up there with a rocket launcher. Even if all they ever shot as was ferals. ( _ Overkill. Just attracts more. _ )

 

Someone’s in the building, giving them the runaround. Also waking up the ferals with all that gunfire and explosives.

 

The idiot on the walkway fires into the next building, shaking the makeshift bridge they’re on. There’s a second explosion, but Nate can’t see the cause at this angle. Probably a turret they took from that old vertibird.

 

The idiot keeps firing, taking more of the building out than whatever he’s trying to kill. Eventually he pauses, launcher lowering for moment.

 

It’s quiet for a moment and Nate sees them motion a subordinate to head forward, confirm the kill. A woman with a shaved head creeps forward, disappearing behind the sign and into the next building.

 

_ It’s over _ , Nate thinks just as he hears the crack of a shot ring out.

 

The idiot starts firing like crazy again, barely noticing that a stray missile dislodges the sign giving them cover.

 

Nate hauls his rifle up, lining up a shot and firing when the idiot slows down to reload.

 

Well, raiders don’t know much but they do know to cover the head. The idiot reels, dropping the launcher and a missile over the flimsy guard rail. With an unarmed opponent, a Mr. Handy rushes forward and slashes at an arm that isn’t covered with badly soldered scrap metal.

 

Taking that shot was risky, could’ve brought more attention to him, but Nate stays to watch this play out. The Handy twists and pirouettes, letting momentum carry the buzzsaw across the chest that’s coming apart in pieces.

 

A grenade flies over both of them, landing behind the idiot perfectly. The resulting blast is the final straw and the bridge collapses to the street with a great noise. Nothing moves from the crumpled heap for a few minutes, but he sees the heated engine of the Handy through the dust. The headlamp from the power armor is out. ( _ Only designed to land on their feet safely from a relative height, crushed to death or slowly dying from multiple broken bones. _ )

 

A curious feral shuffles forward from one of the storefronts. Nate doesn’t even have time to consider if it’s worth the bullet (poor bastard) and giving himself away when a dog tackles it to ground and rips its throat out.

 

Jesus.

 

A woman climbs out of the ruined building and the Handy moves out the wreckage to greet her. Skintight blue suit. A Vault Dweller.

 

She looks out at the hills he’s hiding in. She shouldn’t be able to spot him this far out, but he keeps still. Too dark to see the closer details of her face.

 

The dog comes to a heel at her feet, tail thumping on the ground. Her attention wavers back to the immediate, a hand coming up to pat the animal on the head before turning north, a bag slung over the shoulder and a pistol clutched in hand.

 

As soon as they’re out of sight, he starts moving.

 

\--

 

Goodneighbor is just as he left it a year ago. He can hear John giving a speech up on the Balcony, leaving most of the front street and shops abandoned. Few notice him slip into the the State House. The Neighborhood Watch who stand guard inside recognize him, nodding as he climbs up the steps to John’s loft.

 

Fahrenheit's up there, preferring not to stand on the balcony. The door is open, John’s frame directly in sight and he can hear his speech on “standing together against the Institute” come in clearly. A goddamn racket this close, but the familiar voice gives him some peace; feels his guard lower with a friend so close.

 

He collapses on the couch, bag falling somewhere between there and the main doors, not waiting for Fahrenheit's customary greeting for anyone that isn’t the mayor (a withering glance, sizing him up carefully, then turning away when she deems him non-threatening).

 

God, his knee is killing him.

 

Listening to John’s speech, usually short to keep business running and not bore anyone to tears, Nate wonders if it would be alright to just fall asleep there on that dirty couch John seems to love so much.

 

Something swipes at his legs and he startles, realizing he already fell asleep. John stands above him, a grin lighting up his face.

 

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite drifter,” John ( _ Hancock _ , he keeps forgetting. Nate still remembers the brat that would spend hours in his house going through all the old world crap he collected from the ruins.)

 

Nate grunts and waves at him to sit down. Can’t stand people looming over him.

 

“You alright, brother?” John slumps down easily next to him, legs kicking up to rest on the table. Empty jet containers scatter around his boots and onto the floor. Nate files that info away; John prefers mentats, so it keeps him awake and organized. John keeps it clean in the House and in the streets for the sake of others.

 

“No.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Bad day.”

 

Hancock sighs slowly, kicking those jet containers under the couch. “Damn. You try Nora?”

 

His hands reach across into Nate’s ranger jacket before he can say anything. In the inside pocket he pulls out the scratched gold watch, a broken piece of crap he can never keep fixed. The only thing he managed to keep with him after all this time.

 

John flicks it open, revealing a faded photo of Nora’s smiling face on the inside cover (first official date, aquarium. Said it was for freelance work as well, an exhibit on a dying breed of jellyfish, but he ended up taking more photos of her wandering the halls than of anything else in there. In the last one he took, she’s looking directly into the camera, an exasperated smile stretching her mouth, painted dark because she was “feeling dramatic.” Lights of an aquarium backlight her, throwing her hair into a halo effect; the crinkling around her eyes still visible in the dark of her face. Nora told him it was one of his worse ones and that he shouldn’t keep it).

 

“ _ Nate _ ,” John says in a falsetto voice, Nora’s picture bobbing in front of Nate’s eyes. “ _ Tell Mayor Hancock what you need. _ ”

 

He came here for his old maps but he’s too tired to ask, to look over them right now. He knows he needs to see if any of the safehouses made it. If he can track down any tourists. Needs to get the Railroad back up if there’s nobody up top left.

 

“Don’t wanna be alone right now.”

 

Nora’s picture pulls away with John’s hand, letting them both fall into his lap. “You got it.”

 

\--

 

Paul Hines was the cousin of another soldier, a combat medic by the name of Peter Wells, that Nate had met in Alaska. Both of them had joined at the same time, serving in the same company with different roles. They would trade smokes outside the medical tent whenever their breaks matched up. Peter was even part of the team that cut Nate out of the power armor and soldered his leg back together.

 

Nate never told him about the residual damage, but Peter must have guessed it; was the first to notice a leg that should have worked fine if not for a brain that couldn’t catch up, was the one to send him the name of a clinic to check out when he made it back to Boston.

 

Peter was like Nate. Only in the army for the promise of a steady check and benefits after tours were done. Both enlisted young because they had too many siblings under them and parents that were struggling not to lose face in a world gone mad. They learned to keep their mouths shut if a politician or an officer came by, knew when to take the discharge papers when talk came to weeding out the communists, and never for one minute pretended they were fighting to save the country they served.

 

Paul, though, he was different. Only son from parents that were only a little better off than most. Made their heads spin when he told them he was going off to fight for what he believed in. He stayed on after Anchorage, figuring he would go on with the other boys to “fight commies on China’s own turf for once.”

 

Instead he got sent back home to defend ration sites from desperate families that were struggling to survive. Used power armor and heavy guns on crowds that couldn’t listen to orders to stay in line. This was not how Paul Hines wanted to save his country.

 

This is how it went:

 

On October 23rd, 2077, Nate gets a phone call at three in the morning. Peter’s on the line, asking for help in the middle of bumfuck of nowhere, that he needs someone to talk Paul down. 

 

“Is he going to hurt somebody?” Nate asks, voice quiet because Shaun’s finally stopped crying.  He sees Nora shuffle into their bedroom with a tiny squirming bundle in her arms.

 

“No,” says Peter. “But I think he might hurt himself. Soon. You said you were doing a speech at a veteran’s hall? I think getting him in touch with the professionals there, if we spent the day with him, kept an eye on him--”

 

“Yeah,” he says without thinking. Knows that wherever Paul is right now, he’s been there. Would probably still be there if not for his family pulling him up out of the worst of it. “I can get to your house by six if I leave now.”

 

He thinks that at some point they’re going to have to make time to drive back for Nora and still make it FP. But he doesn’t say that, wants to focus on keeping them calm. He says goodbye, hangs up, and goes back into the bedroom for clothes. As he goes around the bed to closet, he hits his bad leg against the corner. Pain flairs and he curses, causing Shaun to hiccup from somewhere in the makeshift nest in the middle of the bed.

 

“Shhh….” he whispers. Shaun cries for attention these days, quieting immediately after he gets it. His own mother keeps telling them to be careful with that, that it might lead to more tantrums. Hard to ignore a fussy baby when both parents can be classified as stay-at-home (if you’re nosy neighbors) or “glamorously unemployed” (if you’re Nora). Too much time together to not fuss back at him.

 

In the closet, he grabs an outfit that might be his. Should probably change outside so Shaun doesn’t start crying again. Grabs the watch on the bureau as he passes, hoping that whatever repairs he made last week have kept. Finicky old thing, needs better gears or a professional to look at it.

 

Nora mutters something, voice dark enough that she’s probably threatening him to keep quiet or come back to bed. Or maybe she’s dreaming about courtrooms again. He grins and stoops to kiss her, trying to aim for her temple. He ends up kissing the back of her ear, hair tickling his nose. “Go back to sleep, be back soon. I love you.”

 

It’s the last he ever sees of her, but he keeps that moment close. Nora and Shaun in bed together, moonlight shining through the curtains to land on the curves of her face and the line of her arm.

 

\--

 

In the Mayor’s Office, John keeps a terminal. Mostly for business, John would sigh dramatically, having always hated the bureaucracy of government. Business in Goodneighbor usually translates to mean knowing where the people and money are going. 

 

But John’s also one of the few friends Nate has known for more than a few years, who practically learned from him the strengths of good intel and documentation. Back when Nate could still live in Diamond City, John had helped Leslie look after his place whenever he went out mapping the wastes or to take care of Railroad business. Even tried to save the library Nate and Leslie had built over the years from getting into the hands of the Upper Stands residents that wanted him out in the first place.

 

So John knows that writing the history of things, even petty gossip, eventually pays out. Helps people like Nate catch up on things after being gone for months at a time.

 

“I want to say I’m surprised that the Minutemen went bust, but I’m really not.” It doesn’t make Nate feel any better. Seems everyone got their asses kicked this year. Still, if he’s the last of Railroad he’d want to know more about how it happened. Des never gave a shit about anything happening outside of it, which is why so many packages got lost in transit because of ambushes. Already has an idea, if increased Gunner activity is anything to go by. Greed winning out over altruism is not something new to wastes  _ or _ the time before it.

 

“Actually, I’m hearing reports from up north that someone’s trying to make a go of it again,” Hancock’s laid out on the couch next to him, feet propped up in Nate’s lap. He’s coming down from an ultrajet high, watching the smoke of Nate’s cigarette with rapt attention. Or maybe the wall behind it, with the wallpaper still intact in random sections.

 

“Well, here’s hoping it’ll be a little more than giving anyone who wants a free gun a place in the ranks.”

 

John frowns, eyes far away. “Hey man. They’re trying.”

 

“If you had bothered to find my old history textbooks, I would be throwing them at you right now.”

 

“ _ God _ , don’t. Let me enjoy my buzz without being reminded of all those times you stormed into the schoolhouse to remind everyone that war sucked. Leslie told me that’s why there was that law saying you couldn’t teach any more.”

 

Nate laughed, smoke catching in his lungs. “Oh yeah? Did Leslie tell you she got kicked from the school  _ and _ the science lab because she kept blowing things up for her own research? Only damn reason she was kept on the purifier and power hub was because no one else in town bothered to figure out how she took care of it all.”

 

“Heh. Makes me miss the old girl. Only other ghoul I knew that could go toe to toe with you and win.”

 

“Nah,” Nate reaches across John’s legs to grab for a new stick. “More like, the only reason I didn’t up and walk out into the wastes when it got bad. Owed her too much for sticking it out with me for so long.”

 

“You saying she couldn’t kick your ass, brother?”

 

“She’d know to go for my right leg and then bribe some kids to sit on me for a few hours, yeah.”

 

“...She kicked your ass before, didn’t she.”

 

Nate tries not smile, but it’s hard not to. Leslie was the only saving grace of that godforsaken place towards the end there. A city that tossed out one of its own founders because of the way she looked. John had told him, weeks later when he finally came back to find out he couldn’t even approach the front gates, that Leslie walked into the ruins with her head held high. (He likes to think she went somewhere to be a scientist again, spreading knowledge to those who deserved it.)

 

“Tell me more about where Valentine disappeared to”

 

\--

 

Paul Hines died three hours ago around sunset, still wearing the army combat uniform, Peter Wells’ flag held protectively in the crook of his arm.

 

Nate tries to stargaze, having finally stopped weeping, but the fires from Quincy are still going strong. The moon’s barely visible past the smog. The survivalist in him, the only part of him that has thrived in all this, hopes it doesn’t rain. It rained black tar the first few weeks after the end, killing anything the water touched. The statue they’re sitting in front of has melted from weeks of this, the plaque at its feet turned illegible. He’s starting to lose track of time out here, not just by hours but by days as well. He thinks it must have been New Years a few weeks ago.

 

He knows his mother is dead. Found a charred body in a collapsed house on the outskirts of Boston, hands decorated in jewelry she owned, shielding a small body to her chest. (One of his nieces? His sister-in-law was staying with her, said they’d all go to a museum.)

 

Wells died in the hospital he volunteered at, the second week after this all started. Murdered. Military came in, took control of the facility. Last vestiges of the martial law Boston was under. Kept the doctors and nurses hostages. Apparently the idiot decided to be a hero and smuggle some of them out.

 

Nora--

 

Nate ran out of clean water yesterday. Cried himself ragged ten minutes ago. Still the tears come.

 

He found the last survivors of Sanctuary in November, just outside a military-occupied Concord. No one had seen Nora, they said. Anyone who didn’t make it into the vault and was stuck waiting in Sanctuary tried to cram themselves in Bob’s root cellar. Nora was not one of them.

 

Nora was--

 

Nora  _ is _ \--

 

He sobs, hating himself. Wants to feel nothing again like he’d been doing since that fucking day. Wishes he had the strength to end it there with Paul.

 

“Hello?”

 

Nate’s hand is on his pistol, feet hitting the ground before he can think. Raiding has been getting worse. He and Hines had hoped to make it to the swamps and wait it out there, low on ammo and food but hoping there’d be few who could survive in those conditions to bother them.

 

In the road, were two figures, hands clasped between them and rifles (laser?) hanging at their sides. All wrong. Definitely inexperienced. Makes it that much more dangerous, but it’s something to exploit if this goes sideways.

 

He keeps his pistol trained on them. “Identify yourself.”

 

“Um.” One of them lets go of the other, hand going into a bag. Nate switches the safety off, but they barely notice the sound.

 

They flick on a flashlight, holding it up below their chin, lighting up their face up ghoulishly. “I’m Leslie Mathews.” Young. Very young. Probably went to college.

 

The light flips to shine on her partner’s face. “I’m Curtis. Curtis Marsh, sir.”

 

So, two kids with laser rifles. “Where’d you get those weapons?” He’s in a terrible position, no cover except a broken motorcycle slumped up against the steps to the memorial and the low wall propping up the benches and Hines’s body.

 

“We made them at--” Curtis starts, only to be shushed by Leslie.

 

“So you didn’t steal them?” He inches to the right, hoping to the use the low wall as a pitiable defense.

 

“No! We uh-- You’re, um, the first person we’ve met. We tried going to Quincy but uh.”

 

“Where the hell have you two been that you haven’t been in contact with anyone?”

 

“Uh.” Leslie’s flashlight is pointed downwards, so he can’t see Curtis’ face. “We were… underground?”

 

“You don’t sound so sure.” Maybe he can make a break for it, if they’ve got others closing in.

 

“No! I mean, yes! I’m sure it’s just--”

 

Leslie lets out a frustrated sigh, once again cutting off Curtis. She points the flashlight back up again to her face. “We’re from Mass State. Our professor was working on laser technology and we were hired on to help him. We’ve been stuck down there working on these,” she wiggles the rifle in her hands carefully, making Nate flinch at the carelessness, “They were supposed to be bigger, but our tests showed that more could be done on a smaller scale.”

 

“Seems like your research came a little too late.”

 

Nate tried to make the remark bit but it only causes her to shrug.  “We were told to wait down in the lab, but as time went on we decided to stay until we worked out a prototype. We ran out of food a week before we finished.”

 

“No one was there when we got out. Well. Except--We did find a lot of bodies.” Curtis peters off, shuffling in the dirt. His silhouette looks uncomfortable, almost hiding behind the confidence of Leslie. Never looks directly at Nate. 

 

“Is your friend okay?”

 

“What?” Nate’s at the foot of the wall now, hoping his leg doesn’t act up when he decides to jump over it and book it out of there.

 

“Your friend,” and Leslie flicks the beam of her flashlight to the back of Paul’s head. “Is he okay?”

 

“He’s dead.” It’s out before he can stop himself.

 

The light flits away, across Nate’s torso and back down. “Oh god. I’m so--”

 

“Don’t.”

 

All three of them are silent.

 

“Do you know what day it is?” Curtis asks quietly.

 

“No idea.”

 

“What happened to Quincy?”

 

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Was heading into the swamps to wait this shit out.”

 

“Is there--” and Leslie sounds like she’s going to cry, the light quivering in her hand. “Is there any way to find out where our parents are?”

 

And damn him, he wants to feel nothing. Wants to jump this wall and keep going. Somewhere. Nowhere. Away from these lost kids. Away from himself and whatever it is that’s been hanging on.

 

“No, but I’m telling you now that’s too dangerous. Closer you get to Boston, the worse it gets. Military took over completely and now it’s coming to pieces.” He lowers his gun. “Bet you don’t even know how to use those guns.”

 

“It’s point and shoot--” and for the first time in what feels like forever, Nate laughs. Two sheltered kids that are going to get themselves killed and he’s decided he’s going to take care of them.

 

“Like hell it’s that simple. Call me Nate, we can wait out the end of the world together.”

 

\--

 

Dr. Amari clucks her tongue at him. 

 

“Nate, every time you show up--”

 

“It’s called being old--”

 

“And yet still you push me to the limits of my ability to patch humanoid bodies together.”

 

“Just come here so I can bask in the glow of the few friends I have left.” He steps into her personal space slowly, giving her an out, arms winding around her and pulling her close.

 

She stiffly returns it, patting his back gently and allowing him a whole five seconds before pulling back. “It’s good to see you too, regardless of what state you walk in with.”

 

“How’s the family?”

 

The lines of her face crease dramatically, brows pulling together, the corners of her mouth pinched. “Not much news. I’ve heard a few whispers of somewhere closeby, but they’re staying quiet.”

 

“Any mail?”

 

“None, if any of survived. Stockton won’t even answer my calls, but I think that might be because of his daughter.”

 

“Amelia?”

 

The doctor nods, waving him to a seat. “Last seen near Covenant.”

 

“Shit.” Amelia wouldn’t have stopped in willingly. They’re getting bolder.

 

Amari pulls out vodka from a cabinet in the corner and pours some into a shot glass for him. “At this point, he’d only be able to rely on mercenaries.”

 

Nate adds that to the growing list of things he’d need to check in on. He’s taken off the bulk of his armor, just in places where he remembers to have been shot at. “But the family.”

 

“The family,” Amari nods, with him. “And it’s been a few months now. No known deaths, but I’m sure we both know--”

 

“It was bad,” he finishes. Barely notices as she presses stims into different areas of skin. “Found out when I got there. Nearly sighted by them.”

 

Amari sighs again, packs up her supplies. “I wish I had more to tell you. Just know that you aren’t alone in this.”

 

“Having you still kicking around is pretty good.” He winks at her, more for her sake. “Stockton’s been around long enough to know where to start again.”

 

But Deacon. And Glory. Both Toms and Des. Even that asshole Carrington as well. More than a few others he’d miss as well.

 

Amari pats his shoulder. “ _ You’re not alone _ . Remember that you still have friends elsewhere. For our sake, try not to do anything too dangerous.”

 

“Friends are a bit scattered at the moment,” he mutters. Valentine would be helpful right about now, but Hancock’s still looking for more news, neither of them being able to go straight for the source.

 

So Deacon, Glory, the Toms, Des, Carrington, and Nick Valentine: to be found. Eventually. Hopefully. For now though, he’s got Hancock, Amari, and Stockton.

 

He puts on the ranger armor again, more patches than he’d like but it’s helped through the years and he can probably get a few more in.

 

“Did I leave my helmet with you or Hancock?” he asks the doctor.

 

“Hancock has it this time, I think. Why?”

  
“Going back down to Diamond City. Gonna need a better disguise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12 pages where I write absolutely nothing happening :+)))
> 
> Also! Leslie and Curtis are canon characters that exist(ed) at University Point/Mass State (you can find their pretty nifty prototype in a hidden lab at the credit union, with an upgraded version given to you by a very special NPC). We'll be seeing more of them in the coming chapters as well as Peter and Paul, and talk more about Nate's ranger armor.
> 
> Speaking of Paul, his final resting place is an actual place in-game, just outside of Murkwater Construction Site (it's like north? along that small road that goes toward the Atomatoys factory). I'm. I'm going to do that a lot.


	4. Legend of the Wastes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nate, please stop adopting everyone younger than you.

Saying things for dramatic effect has never helped Nate. He doesn’t even know  _ why _ he says shit like that anymore, a possible failing from hanging out too much with Railroad agents and their impelling leaders. Too much of an artist, Nora had told him when he tried to take up writing beyond speeches at veteran halls. Nora never made speeches, just outlined simple, logical, foolproof plans. Put it together like it was something you had been thinking all along. It’s probably what made her best at PR work for the clients she was hired out to; putting their goals, no matter how lofty or vague, and turning it into something that got everyone nodding. Turned it into something even better than what the clients thought they were doing.

 

So of course he should have expected Amari  _ and _ Hancock to laugh in his face. Well, Amari was too kind and practical to laugh but she did give him a pitying look, the one she usually got whenever he came in with a bad hit to the head. Hancock definitely laughed long and hard when he came by to explain his plan, wheezing and giggling right off the couch. Then he told his guards to bar the door while Fahrenheit went off to hide Nate’s stuff around Goodneighbor.

 

“Just  _ sit _ down, rel _ ax _ a spell, un _ wind _ a bit.” Nate isn’t sure how he manages it but John’s a lot heavier than he looks. Tackling him to the floor was a bit much, but he’s impressed enough to not wreck any more furniture. He already owes him a few coffee tables.

 

Of course, the main reason he isn’t punching John in the face is because of all the years they’ve had together. (Well, mostly because of Fahrenheit’s reprisal.) But also because Hancock has wound his spindly little body around his larger frame, effectively trapping his arms to his sides. Nate kicks at the floor helplessly, causing Hancock to cling tighter. It’s actually getting a little harder to breathe.

 

“Nate, as much as I appreciate the thought of sticking it to the man and  _ especially _ to smug assholes in Diamond City, I’m gonna have to ask you to sit this one out,” Hancock grunts from where he’s pressed his face against his neck. The point of his tricorn hat is somewhere in Nate’s eye.

 

“I’m not the first ghoul to sneak in,  _ John _ .”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. But you’re terrible at sneaking. Too big of a rep. Terrible at lying, too,  _ by the way _ . Just all around  _ bad _ at subtlety.”

 

“Reputation didn’t seem to matter when they  _ kicked me out of house _ .”

 

“Nate,” and Hancock sighs, hot breath laving over the scarred skin of his neck. “Just use something other than the Ranger gear, alright? Then we’ll talk about how to break in.”

 

“What’s wrong with my armor?” He tries to shake Hancock off again, but he snuggles in tighter. He’s losing feeling in his fingertips.

 

“Everyone knows about the Ranger of the Wastes, my guy.”

 

“Okay, but how many know he’s a ghoul?”

 

“Shit man, I dunno, how about.... _ everyone _ in Diamond City? To us kids, you were a goddamn urban legend, we barely had to make stuff up about your adventures out in the wastes. We were half in awe and half scared of you, man.”

 

“Didn’t stop you from breaking into my place all the time.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Hancock sighs again and Nate can feel the way it shakes his whole body ( _ too many chems over the years, before ghoulifcation, definitely some rotted lungs _ ). The way it loosens the arms around him just a fraction. “You had all the good books, DC’s only damn library in all but name, and other fun toys. And I didn’t ‘ _ break in _ ,’ Leslie always gave me the key. You and her kept your place open for anyone who wanted to peek in when you weren’t around, remember?”

 

“Well, it’s a damn shame I couldn’t actually donate it to the school before they kicked me. Guess they figured I forfeited all my belongings just for existing as I did.”

 

“...Yeah.” And it’s a bad topic, always is. John probably took the ghoul purge harder than Nate ever did, even when they both lost Leslie and Nate lost the place he’s ever stayed in longest. It was frustrating to hear all the shit he collected over the years was divided up among upper stand residents only, the house he built soon after he and Leslie finished constructed the power generator that really put Diamond City as a viable settlement instead of a refuge. It was infuriating to hear what they did to Leslie, who held that place together for every shifting power since the place was named. But it never actually felt like a home to him, just another place to crash when it was time to leave the wastes again. Leslie understood that, maybe that’s why she had been ready to walk out as she did.

 

He doesn’t think John will ever believe it when he tells him he’s proud for what he did, taking care of the others left in the ruins before Nate made it back from another venture out in the wastes, searching for Leslie when he couldn’t. It was all too personal for him.

 

Nate nudges his face into Hancock’s, tipping his hat onto the floor. If he leaned his head a little further down, he could kiss the crown of his head. ( _ Best not to waken old crushes. _ )

 

“What would it take to get you off me right now?”

 

“A promise not to go to Diamond City.”

 

“Still acting like the brat I remember. I have to talk to Nick’s secretary if I want to find out where he went.”

 

“I told you I was keeping an ear out for that!”

 

“I need Nick’s help  _ now _ .”

 

Hancock groans low in Nate’s shoulder, a sound that grows into a roar of frustration. “You are walking neon sign of trouble!”

 

“I thought that was your favorite part about me.”

 

A weak laugh. “You’re the worst.”

 

“I promise, my plan will work. I’ll be fine.”

 

“No it won’t. No promises on that last one. Just--I don’t know. Just go. Prove one of us wrong.” With reluctance, John uncurls himself, flopping on the floor next to Nate. “I’m just worried one of us is going to die and will have to answer to your Nora about all the stupid shit you pull.”

 

\--

  
  


The worst part of this plan was the pivotal helmet.

 

He had found it probably a hundred years after the Great War, containing the skeleton of the unlucky sod who was wearing it at the time. So it still had, after all these years, a smell that lingered; not even replacing the lining had changed that. It also didn’t help that it was tight and limited his vision. The only redeeming qualities it had were the built in gas mask and the night-vision eye pieces. He might have even added the intimidating figure he gained with it but it didn’t seem to be working to his benefit today.

 

“Wow, boss, they sure are in a hurry for  _ something _ ,” the kid he’s hired snarks. The kid (and he’s definitely a kid, even if the wear and tear of the waste has added too many wrinkles and premature gray hairs to someone his age) is--was supposed to be--a distraction. A smoothskin to get settle the nerves of any security who looked too closely.

 

“As your employer, I’m ordering you not to tell Hancock he was right.”

 

Down the street, Diamond Security were hustling in as many traders in and out of the closing gate as fast as they could. In the panic of confused merchants, there was a young woman, dressed in a faded red coat. She dodged around rattled brahmin and held on to any settler she could grab, holding them in place underneath the gate, causing to grind to a halt.

 

“Ah, shit,” Nate cursed, picking up the pace.

 

An officer, who had been yelling at the woman in red and victimized settler, pushed red down on the outer side of the stadium, an escaped brahmin and its owner nearly trampling her as they ran from the scene.

 

“HEY!” Nate was running at full tilt. A single security officer stood between him and the girl still huddled on the ground. The smartest thing the guy did was not shoot at the heavily armed and charging ghoul in ranger gear.

 

“Your kind ain’t welcome!” The officer was pointing the rifle low, but the thought barely slows Nate down. “Shitty disguises won’t work with us, pal.”

 

In one fluid motion, Nate squeezes the now useless helmet off and chucks it at the guy’s head as soon as he’s close enough. The force of it sends him stumbling back, gun nearly flying out of his hands, a good enough distraction to get past him and help--

 

“Nate! Nate, oh my  _ God _ , I’m fine!” Piper’s waving her arms in front of her like he might tackle her and it’s honestly a close thing, as he skids to a short stop, momentum nearly taking her down with him back to the ground.

 

“Piper--” She’s dusty on the side she fell on, her hat askew and hair rumpled, but not obviously hurt. “How’s it been?” he finally asks like he isn’t just slightly out of breath.

 

She ignores him, bumping past to get between him and the now furious officer who was shouting at MacCready.

 

“Officer Mallone! Please, let’s not get carried away!” she smiles prettily, all teeth, hands up in a show of vulnerability. “You remember Nate, obviously. Always the gentlemen, always wanting to help distressed damsels and what not.”   
  


Mallone -- a Diamond City native that grew up strong from a steady supply of readily available food and medicine. Too slow to join the Minutemen, but tough enough for Diamond City security. Hit the other kids harder than they could take.

 

He’s visibly shaking, waving Nate’s helmet at him threateningly. “Get your fucking feral out of here before I blow his brains out of his ugly fucking mug!”

 

“Right, absolutely, message received, have a great day, Officer Mallone.” Piper’s still smiling, slightly strained and she grabs Nate’s arm in a tight hold, frog marching him down the street back to Goodneighbor.

 

Mallone chucks his helmet at them, only to be caught by MacCready. “Jeez, boss, maybe I should have charged you more than I did if this is the kind of cra--stuff you get up to.”

 

“Noted, Mac.”

 

Piper still has an iron grip in his arm (could easily shake her off, but she’s worse than John, never let go of something even if it was safer) and she pulls him down a different street only to turn on him with a furious look in her eye.

 

“ _ Please _ tell me you weren’t about to storm into Diamond City dressed like that.”

 

“Why is everyone so against this?”

 

Piper would have done well in theater, dramatic in her movements, a loud voice that carried. “I’m walking merrily out the gates, for  _ once _ minding my own business, when I hear everyone yelling ‘Oh, shit,  _ Nate’s  _ coming!’ Did you honestly expect them to take one look at your getup and think ‘Oh no way is this one of the two ghouls that helped put Diamond City on the map. No  _ way _ is this the same Ranger Piper interviewed all those years ago. Noooo way this is the guy that McDonough made sure was off on some job when he started the purge.’” She stomps her foot, looking up at him wild-eyed and upset, tiny fists clenched at her sides. (It’s adorable and Nate tries not to laugh for her sake. MacCready has no such reservations.)

 

“Pipsqueak…” She glares at the old nickname, but Nate doesn’t know what else to say. It would just invite more yelling. “I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

 

She deflates into a sulky pout. “Yeah, well, me too. Haven’t seen ya in forever. Ya never call, ya never write…”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs. He feels  _ old _ , looking at her after so many years. He  _ is  _ old. Shit. “Actually came to look for Nick.”

 

“Well, what a coincidence, so was I.” She glares him down, all five-feet-five-inches of her, hands still akimbo.

 

“If you’re asking to come along I’m not saying no.”

 

“Oh.” She blinks at that, slightly surprised. Then grins. “Hah! Not a pipsqueak anymore am I?”

 

“You tell me. Still climbing on counters to get your junk food.”

 

She kicks him, as she walks past, leading the way. 

 

\--

 

“Come onnnnnn…”

 

“No.”

 

“Please?”

 

“I said no, pipsqueak.”

 

“ _ Les _ lie!”

 

“Sorry, hun,” the ghoul sitting at Power Noodles shrugs. “Nate’s never been too good with words.” She flashes a cheeky grin at him, winking her one good eye at him. He thinks it’s a wink, hard to tell ever since Broken Mask when that damn synth carved out the left side of her face in the chaos.

 

Piper isn’t satisfied with this. She stomps her foot imperiously at both of them, too impetuous in her fifteen year old body to have learned when to hold back her tells. “Everyone wants to know about the Lone Ranger. What better way to spread hope than giving an exclusive of Diamond City’s own hero?”

 

“I’m nobody’s damn hero, kid.” He wants to leave it at that, eat the rest of these fucking noodles and head out for Railroad business ( _ Pinky’s been sending them out too often, running them all ragged, substituting him as a heavy by tricking him into mapping dangerous areas by his damn self. Asshole. _ ) But he sees the way Leslie’s lips twitch upward in the corner of his eye, like she’s laughing at him, so of course he has to squint back and look. And. Yup. Kid’s writing this shit down too.

 

“Then why do you do what you do?” Pen scribbling away furiously, she doesn’t even look up to meet his halfhearted glare.

 

“Because--”

  
  


\--

 

Getting to Bunker Hill is mostly uneventful. Both kids are a decent shot, he’ll give them that. The merc might actually be a prodigy if he wasn’t holding his damn rifle wrong, but he’s accurate enough that he doesn’t comment. Chalks it up to being self-taught. Piper knows when to duck behind cover, knows enough not to draw attention to herself. Both let him do the heavy work, which is fine enough with him.

 

The territories between super mutants and raiders has changed a bit since he’s been away, shifting power plays in the anarchy of the ruins. His companions still skitter when he makes them creep through the Boston Commons, so some things never change. (Someone should really take care of Swan one of these days. Not him, though, thanks.)

 

Kessler still shoves her rifle in his face when he shows up. 

 

“What business?”

 

“Damn, Kessler. Still can’t tell us ghouls apart, huh? It’s Nate. The  _ mapper _ .”

 

She rolls her eyes, her upper lip raised in a sneer. “Yeah, I remember you. Just stay away from the kids, we don’t get a lot of ghouls here.”

 

“ _ Thanks _ .” He doesn’t bother admonishing Piper when she stick her tongue out at Kessler’s turned back as they pass by.

 

Bunker Hill hasn’t changed much since he’s been gone. Maybe a few more dwellings for the overnight trader and caravan hand, but still the same if not a little busier. It was a merchant’s town, built with the intention of housing more brahmin than Diamond City could handle. Gossipy traders made up the elite, those who were more interested in sizing each other up. Caravan hands came next, then mercs looking to make an easy pay. Prying information out of any of them could cost more caps than he’d be willing to part with.

 

“So,” Piper drawls, sidling up close to Nate. “Nick’s secretary said the girl he was looking for was the daughter of some merchants.”

 

“Last seen here?”

 

She shrugs. “Apparently or at least expected to be here. Nick’s notes weren’t complete, buuuut they did mention sometimes going to Goodneighbor to sell chems.”

 

“Hm.” Odd that, makeshift chem labs were set up in the street, supplies shared between drifters for a communal high. Marowski might be on his way out, but he was still at the top of paid chem deals there. Little use to go there and make a profit, especially with a doctor here in need of supplies. “Split up. Check at the bar and the doctor. I’ll check with the regular traders.”

 

MacCready saunters off before he’s finished talking, making a beeline toward the bar. Piper gives him a jaunty salute and walks off, a peculiar gleam in her eye as she sizes up the traders who somehow know who they’re dealing with.

 

Now with a little privacy…

 

He makes his way into the pavilion, barely flinching when a girl of about ten gasps in terror at his mangled face. He’s used to it now.

 

Stockton seems at home here, now that he’s become a figurehead of most of the major trade routes. 

 

“Sure is a step up from the slums of Diamond City,” Nate says to him as he saunters up to the counter. Stockton flinches, eyes wide as he takes him in. The old man didn’t get to his age by being the best at bartering and trading, but being just paranoid enough to be ahead of the rest. Nate really should have expected it to rear its ugly head now of all times.

 

“Showing up here without an invitation doesn’t do you any favors, boy,” he mutters lowly. ( _ Like Nate hasn’t been around longer than he is. _ )

 

“Last I heard, they still haven’t made any synth replicas of ghouls. Really makes you wonder how the Institute views the world, only taking humans with no physical mutations.”

 

Stockton glares at him, rigid, like he’s going to pull a gun or call one of the guards.

 

Nate chooses for him. “Got back into town just after shit hit the fan,” he says as he slides a holotape out of his jacket and across the counter. A full progress report from outside territories with Railroad approved countersigns embedded in the recordings.

 

But the old man shakes his head, not getting any closer to him or the tape. “Don’t know where you could have gotten that.”

 

“I’m not a--”

 

“Doesn’t matter whether you are or not. You broke protocol. You were gone too long. You’re out, Nate, it’s too much of a risk, especially after, as you say,  _ shit hit the fan _ .”

 

A risk. He narrows his eyes at that. So there’s something left of the Railroad still being protected.

 

“Alright. I understand. Something else then.” He digs that fucking helmet out of his bag, slides it on. Tight fit. Terrifyingly uncomfortable, but necessary. “I’m getting Amelia back.”

 

Stockton practically explodes, sputtering and gasping. “You can’t-- I already have someone--Nate, this won’t get you back into the company’s good graces!”

 

“It’s not,” he says truthfully. “It’s not about you or...the company. It’s about looking after kids and fighting monsters. You can pay me back later.”

 

He leaves before the old man can say anything else.

 

Piper’s joined MacCready at the bar and they’ve already resorted back to snarking at each other. ( _ And God he doesn’t miss the petty squabbles of young kids who don’t know whether they want to fight or fuck. _ ) Joe Savoldi looks ready to kick both of them out.

 

“Oh,  _ Mac _ , the world could end in fire a second time and I still won’t ever take ‘shooting lessons’ with you,” the young reporter says sweetly, eyes a little too dangerous and a smile a little too sharp at the edges.

 

Mac isn’t even phased by it, probably finding her reactions entertaining. “You sure, Piper? I’ve been told I’m an impressive shot. Bet you could learn a thing or two from me.”

 

“ _ Enough _ .”

 

Both of the brats jump, MacCready looking especially guilty to find his employer standing right behind him. Piper looks too pleased with herself.

 

“Tell me what you both learned.”

 

“Nothing from the caravan hands or traders. They steered clear of me, probably from one of those articles I wrote.” Piper sighs dramatically, a limp hand coming up to shield her face. “Infamy can be too much of a hassle sometimes. Oh! But the doctor says Darla sold off a bunch of chems, looked like they were made in Goodneighbor, but the more expensive quality.”

 

“Was she using?”

 

“Nah, not that the doc could tell. Said Darla tried to get a better offer from them, but it wasn’t really stuff she could use.”

 

“Anything at the bar?”

 

“I’ll tell you what I told him and the synth,” says Joe, butting in over MacCready. “Darla’s always had an attitude problem. Acts like she’s too good for anything. Didn’t order anything and refused to stay the night, saying she was meeting up with ‘a real man.’ Guy turned out to be fatter than a brahmin with some gussied up suit.”

 

“Sounded like a Goodneighbor mobster,” MacCready supplies, more focused on his drink than anything around him.

 

“Yeah, but fat?  _ Shiiit _ …” Nate sighs. Of course it would be him.

 

Piper actually look worried, her reporter’s face falling apart at the thought of Diamond City’s favorite synth being in danger. “How bad are we talking here, ranger?”

 

“It’s Skinny Malone, old ‘friend’ of Nick’s, but…”

 

“What?”

 

“A cult kidnapped a friend of mine. If it’s Skinny that Darla’s been going with, then Nick might be able to take care of himself, but as for the kid...”

 

“When you say ‘kid,’ do you mean actual-child kid or anyone-younger-than-you kid?”

 

“She’s fifteen. Amelia Stockton.”

 

“Oh. Well,” Piper rolls her eyes, fondly. “Say no more. No one gets away with hurting kids when the Ranger’s on the case.”

 

“Don’t you want to head back to--”

 

“ _ Oh no _ ! Don’t you start.” She levels a finger at him, stepping down off her stool to get into his personal space. “I’ve waited too long to see the Ranger in action. This article is long overdue, don’t you think?”

 

“I was kind of hoping you would one day drop it.”

 

She grins at him, all teeth and Trouble with a capital T. “Not a chance.”

 

\--

 

“The Wanderer?”

 

“No.”

 

“Protector?”

 

Growl.

 

“The Urban Ranger?”

 

Sigh.

 

“You’re right, can only use Ranger so many times before it gets old. Maybe… Strider of the Wastes? Didn’t you have that one book--”

 

“You’re reaching, Pipsqueak.”

 

“Right, right, gotta keep it fresh. Hero for Hire? No, don’t answer that, not usually your style. The Adventurer? Avenger?  _ Guardian _ of the Wastes? Ooh, okay which do you prefer: the Urban Legend, Myth, or Superstition? Like I feel that Urban Superstition has that scary chord in it similar to whatever raiders feel whenever they spot you through their scopes, but I don’t think they really read my stuff so it’s not like they’re going to appreciate it.”

 

“I’m thinking at this point, I’m considering to go with  _ Loner _ .”

 

“Ouch.”

 

“So,” MacCready coughs from a few feet from his right flank. “Is it too late to ask for annoyance fees? Because if this is your typical crowd I think I might have to start charging for extra.”

 

“No one’s asking for your opinion,  _ Mac _ .”

 

Nate stops short, just for the effect of cutting off Piper as she slams into his back, too engrossed with picking on his paid backup to pay attention to what’s in front of her. There’s a raided caravan in the road.

 

“Oh  _ shit. _ ”

 

He steps over the bloated carcass of a dead Gunner ( _ Not raiding. Guarding. Packed for a long trip. _ ). No caravan hands, no Amelia. A cursory purview of the leftover supplies shows most of it still in tact. Didn’t even bother to make it look like raiders. But--

 

Lying in the road, there’s a bottle labeled  _ Deezer’s Lemonade _ in shaky handwriting. 

 

On aching knees, he rises back up slowly, turning back to his companions. “I’ve dealt with it for as long as I could, but now I’m putting up ground rules for this mission. We play this subtle.  _ No _ \--” and he jabs a finger at Piper “direct questions. I understand sensationalism gets you and your paper by, that you do whatever the hell you want when you go galavanting by yourself, but you’re gambling with two other lives today. If anyone asks we’re here as caravan scouts looking for a new trade route. Covenant’s young and it’s obvious they want more traffic going through them, but I’ve got intel it’s not for trade. We’re going to find out why.”

 

He points at MacCready next. “Not a word about me being a ghoul. They’ve got a narrow list of people they want in and I’ve been snooping longer than you two have been the genetic material in your parents’ gametes.”

 

“My parents’  _ what _ ? You know what, nevermind. Just say you’re old, boss, it’s not like we don’t know.”

 

Piper raises her hand.

 

He sighs for what feels like the millionth time and wants desperately to take this fucking helmet off. “Yes, Piper?”

 

“Sooo…. These guys are trying to be the next Diamond City?”

 

“No. Ghouls aren’t ‘forbidden’ but there have been enough traders that have heard about their elite list and figure it as that. These guys aren’t trying to correct any of that misunderstanding just so they can keep their business going. Mostly the so called rules are to keep potential synths out.”

 

Mac shrugs. “So what’s the problem?”

 

“Problem is…there’s too many disappearances going on in this part of the country.”

 

“Yeah,” the brat drags out. “Institute. Everyone knows that.”

 

“Institute’s MO is to kidnap and  _ replace. _ Infiltration. But what we’ve got here are people that aren’t showing up again where they’re expected to be. They’re just gone. No increase in raider or Gunner activity along the trade routes. A town seemingly in the middle of nowhere. So…”

 

“You took me to an entire  _ town _ of kidnappers? Aw, Nate, you sure know to show a girl a good time,” Piper teases, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

 

“Ha ha. Just--keep it cool,” again, he points at Piper. “ _ Casual _ . If you want to be a reporter here, no questions about synths.  _ Anything _ but synths.”

 

“Aye, aye, captain.”

 

(He would’ve believed her if she didn’t chant “casual” under her breath as they approached the outskirts of the walled in town.)

 

Coming around the side, he makes a cursory check of the perimeter. No guards patrolling, only heavy duty turrets attached to the pillars. The walls are completely intact, not Pre-War construction, but someone knew what they were doing. Had to put in a lot of manpower and supplies to get something like this up.

 

At the entrance there’s only a single man standing sentry. Barely armed, no armor. It’s the makeshift office that catches Nate’s attention though. He spots two cameras, trained directly on the desk inside. ( _ Construction, military grade turrets, Pre-War surveillance equipment. Most wastelanders wouldn’t even think to question it, they’d just see people who’ve got their act together.) _

 

A voice breaks him out of his thoughts.

 

“You here visiting Covenant, pal?” The sentry smiles pleasantly at him, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Obviously already sized him up. ”If not, move along. You know, armed people loitering around? Not really good for the nerves.”

 

( _ Wanting defenseless victims? Typical. _ ) “Scouting actually. Hired by a new caravan to look for better routes.”

 

“Really? Well, Covenant has the best prices in the Commonwealth.” The man smiles even brighter, and it’s too much salesman coated over guard.

 

“Haven’t heard much about you.”

 

“We’re up and comers. A pit stop for traders right now but we’re making it big with our bargains. We’ve got a doc, lemonade, guest housing. One small catch though.”

 

“Isn’t there always?”

 

“We can’t just let anyone inside. There’s an entrance test. We call it the SAFE test. Everyone who comes in has to take it.”

 

That’s….new. Or maybe just not in the reports he’s heard.

 

“Interesting idea,” he tries to relax himself. He’s rethinking the idea of the helmet again, but it’s helped scare people straight before. Given him the advantage of not being read. “Between you and me, what’s the test for?”

 

The response comes a little too easy, both of them trying to hard to string the other along. “I probably shouldn’t say nothing... but we do it to make sure only good people get in. You feel me? No... undesirables, nobody that ain’t what they say there are, yeah?”

 

“Undesirables like… ghouls? Mutants?”

 

The man laughs nervously, eyes casting around. “No, man, like…” he lowers to a whisper. “ _ Synths _ .”

 

Piper shifts somewhere behind him, a rustle of fabric and dead grass crunching underfoot, and like that the man’s back at work. A glorified salesman with a gun.

 

“Look, I’m not going to say anything more than that,” he says with a strained smile. “Just take the test. You pass? You can come inside where everything’s safe. All right?”

 

All the alarm bells in Nate’s head are going off. There aren’t a lot of guaranteed tests, not even in the Railroad. These guys though, a little too keen to get people to come inside, too excited to be cautious to see if their test is working. Unless--

 

“Yeah, I’ll take it.” He’s seen tests that look more like Salem witch trials, absolution found only when the body comes up all organic. Diamond City even had a policy of trying to see how many magnets would stick to a person (before Nick showed them that most synth parts are closer to plastic than metal).The SAFE test will be enlightening at the very least.

 

“Great!” and man, this guy’s too pleased to have a new customer. “Have a seat over here.”

 

The cameras are definitely rolling, as Nate can see a strip of black tape over the red light as he sits on the old dining chair salvaged from parts unknown. The man in front of him makes a show of setting up his clipboard and pen, a series of boxes and scales printed on the pages in front of him.

 

“There ain’t no wrong answers,” he assures him.

 

_ Not if you’re testing for something. _ Nate gestures for him to begin.

 

“You are approached by a frenzied scientist who yells ‘I’m going to put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonation chamber.’” He’s already scribbling something down, pen moving across the page, checking boxes here and there. “What’s your response?”

 

Nate--

 

Nate pauses. Feels an itch at the back of his mind, a sense of deja vu. ‘ _ I’m going to put something in your eye? _ ’ It’s a thought he’s had before, but he can’t remember where or when.

 

He wonders if this asshole knows what it means. 

 

“I wouldn’t worry,” he says with acted non chalance.  “If he tried that, it would cause a parabolic destabilization of the fission singularity.”

 

(MacCready wheezes behind him, hides it behind a cough. An Unstoppables fan. A little endearing.) But the asshole here in front of him blinks in perplexment.

 

“Uh… yeah,” he mumbles, furiously trying to write all that down. Doesn’t recognize a reference when he hears one. A lie to throw off the results. “Next question: while working as an intern in the Clinic, a patient with a strange infection on his foot stumbles through the door. The infection is spreading at an alarming rate, but the doctor has stepped out for a while. What do you do?”

 

There.  _ In _ the clinic, not  _ at _ the clinic. His mind cradles around that carefully. He’s heard it before, it has a place. ( _ Blonde hair, scraped hands. _ )

 

“Medicate the infected area as best I can,” he answers truthfully. ( _ Medicate, medicate, medicate _ medicatemedicate _ Medicine _ )

 

“You have a medical background.” Not impressed, wary. One checkmark. “You discover a young boy lost in a cave--” ( _ No, wrong _ .) “--He’s hungry and frightened, but also appears to be in possession of stolen property. What do you do?”

 

( _ Pre-war, post-war, untouched by wasteland judicial systems _ .) “I--Comfort him, tell him everything’s okay.”

 

The man doesn’t notice his hesitation, or at least doesn’t make a show of it. Presses on with a few swipes of the pen. “Congratulations! You made it onto a baseball team! Which position do you prefer?”

 

He jolts.  _ Explosives _ , he remembers before he has time to even think  _ No one in the wastes fucking remembers baseball. _ He picked Pitcher last time.

 

Pitcher, Designated Hitter, Catcher, or I Prefer Soccer.

 

( _ Seems like Lil Miss One-oh-One-- _ “Hey, could you turn that Pip-Boy off? I’m trying to give this test.” The Overseer’s face is turned down in a bitter scowl.  _ There’s a story there _ , he should ask if he ever runs into her again--)

 

(“Should’ve gone with Designated Hitter. That’s what folks going into security pick. You seem like a Heavy to me.”)

 

“Pitcher,” he chokes out. His stomach curling in disgust. They can’t be serious. This has to be a joke. Or they’re idiots. He can settle for idiots. Worse has been done by stupidity.

 

“Are you sure about--Nevermind, next question.”

 

Blood pounding in his ears. He never did get to ask about that story, why she only pointed him in the direction of a living vault and not escorted him there like she had all the times before. Why Overseer Amata Almodovar’s lips pursed when he mentioned her, a harried explanation of “an old friend” that didn’t seem so genuine.

 

(“I’ll be honest. It’s supposed to be used for job placement, I guess before the war you could pick and choose whatever you wanted to do, but down here population control makes it different. I remember my teacher saying it’s mostly bullshit, even offered to rearrange the answers for... some students. If they really wanted to do something else.”)

 

The man’s voice sounds like he’s underwater, far away and distorted. “Your grandmother invites you to tea, but you’re surprised when she gives you a pistol and orders you to kill someone. What do you do?”

 

(“So what’d you get?” Ambushed by Talon Company and she looks none the worse for wear, bright blonde hair cinched up tight at the top of her head, blood and brain matter inching past her forehead and into the thick of it. The flesh has started peeling off more in patches. Scarred, not rotten.  _ A good sign if any. _ )

 

“Give her whatever she wants to spare his life.” 

 

(“Jukebox technician.” “Better than Clinical Test Subject. Hit a little too close to home that day...”)

 

“Typical Class B… Old Mr. Abernathy has locked himself in his quarters again, and you’ve been ordered to get him out. How do you proceed?” 

 

(Didn’t even try that hard to make it accessible to wasteland living. The most dangerous form of plagiarism?)

 

“Pick the lock with a bobby pin.” Piper’s shifted closer, leaning against the wall in the corner of his vision. Arm held at her side she signs letters; closing her fingers in a circle, then her thumb between pointer and middle. Scratches the air with the first finger.  _ Are you okay? _

 

“That’s it? Nothing else? Wait, don’t answer.” The man scribbles something at the bottom of the page in tiny letters. 

 

Nate slips his hand out of his lap, hangs it loosely at his side, fingers clenching into a fist.  _ Stay still. _ Jumps at the low “ _ Next _ ,” from the man as he flips to the next page.

 

“Oh no!” the man drones sardonically. ( _ Really, really didn’t try at all to make their own test. _ ) “You’ve been exposed to radiation and a mutated hand has grown out of your stomach. What’s the best course of treatment?”

 

“Anti-mutagen agent--” Nate freezes as the man lifts his head sharply, glaring right into the reds of his helmet.

 

“Ignoring possible-- Yes.” Doesn’t write down anything, keeps his eyes focused on Nate as he parrots, “A neighbor is in possession of a Grognak the Barbarian comic book, issue number one. You  _ want _ it. What’s the best way to obtain it?”

 

He doesn’t have his eyes on Piper, and technically neither does Nate but he’s aware of the cameras still watching them. Knows Piper hasn’t noticed them by the way she’s growing stiffer, eyes flitting between the two of them. Acting more suspicious by the second, both of them. Only hopes Mac’s gonna be the sane one through all of this.

 

“Trade him for one of my own comics.”

 

The man doesn’t relax, but he does take his eyes off Nate finally. Starts writing again. “Last question--”

 

(“You know the vaults? We were just experiments. Mine was too. Although... I guess... Nevermind actually, did they still have that last question? About the all powerful overseer? God, you’d think--I can’t believe we lived through that. That we put up with that.”)

 

“You decide it would be fun to play a prank on your father. You enter his private restroom when no one is looking and…”

 

“Mess with razor so it’ll short circuit when he uses it.” Another test, electrical razors are usually scrapped down for parts, most people relying on sharpened knives if they bother with shaving.

 

Asshole doesn’t even notice an answer directly from the test. Grins at Nate over the clipboard, honestly pleased as he folds the papers back down.

 

“Test’s over. Not so bad now was it?”

 

“Guess not.”

 

“No one’s ever answered quite like you did, though,” but it’s not a threat, no careful measuring of a reaction, too busy putting the papers into a sealed envelope and into a locked drawer. “But you passed and I can open the gate for you.”

 

“Great. That’s--great.”

 

He stands up stiffly and Piper at least has the decency to wait for the man to pass out of earshot before gluing herself to his side.

 

“Hey--”

 

“Not now. Still being watched.” He pushes past her, stands at the ready and tries not to reach for his gun when the doors swing open. At least Mac stands ready with his gun unholstered.

 

Inside the walls, it’s like stepping back in time, a slice of the Pre-War world with cheerfully painted houses and bright picket fences. People smile and wave hello as they pass. After all this time in the wastes, it’s damn fucking creepy.

 

(He counts at least two caravan companies mixed with the townsfolk. It’s a small town, literally, but too big for the victory garden near the entrance. A small household, maybe. Not enough for a town, certainly not to trade with.)

 

The real trouble comes in when he sees the other mercenary interrogating a local.

 

“Hey, don’t I know you?” Nate greets, all fake cheer. Honest Dan, an independant merc who usually knows enough not to try shooting first, looks ready to destroy his career. The local he’d been interrogating makes their escape as Nate closes in on them. “I think I do. Let me buy you a drink.”

 

He grabs at Dan’s arm and tries pulling him toward an alcove before he’s roughly shaken off.

 

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are--”

 

“Call me Nate,” he grunts. “You were hired by Stockton. I’m here to help find Amelia.”

 

The merc relaxes a fraction, still wary but curious. “Seriously? Why didn’t you just say so instead of some bullshit about drinks? Not a decent bar for miles.”

 

“Because I know enough about these people not to try the direct approach.”

 

“Yeah, well, fuck me for thinking this would be a straightforward job.” Dan glances about, at the people milling around them, some more keen to linger in listening distance than others. A glare sets them walking again. “It’s all these fake smiles and fancy talk putting me on edge. The sooner I’m out of here the better. Tell me what you know about the job.”

 

“Just here to find the girl. Ran across the caravan on our way here. Not raiders.”

 

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too.” He fumbles for a pack, lights it up quickly. “If you’re here for the girl, I’ve got some good news: at least one survivor walked away. Could be her. All I was asked to do was at least put a timeline together. This was the last known stop but I keep getting the runaround from these idiots. Barely keeping their stories straight.”

 

“Yeah.” Stupidity makes men more dangerous, not less. “Got a glimpse of it at the gate.”

 

The merc takes a long drag from his cigarette, halving it in seconds. “Listen, if you’re really here to help out, I’ll split the reward with you. Fifty-fifty.”

 

“Sure, just be ready to move if--”   
  


“ _ Deezer’s Lemonade! Get your fresh lemonade right here! _ ” a tinny voice cracks over the noise of the town. 

 

“Oh, here we go…” Dan stomps away from the source of the noise, a rusty Mr Handy that’s been scrapped for most of its circuitry. 

 

_ Dumb as a rock now. _

 

“Aren’t lemons extinct?” Piper’s hand goes into his bag unasked, pulling out the bottle from earlier. “What kind of sickos are we dealing with here, Nate? Kidnappers  _ and _ liars? If they weren’t so hung up on synths, I’d think we’re dealing with cannibals. Hey did I ever tell you about that time--”

 

“Later. Go fishing, Pipster, ask--but don’t  _ ask _ \--about the synth problems. Nevermind what I said earlier, we’ve got a change of plans. Nothing about the investigation.”

 

“Rodger dodger.” She hurries off, matching the town’s smiles with one of her own. 

 

“Mac, with me. You’re lookout.”

 

“Right behind you, boss.”

 

The first open house is the guest area. Flowers in faded vases and no stairs to the top floor or basement. (And there is a basement, the floor is hollow when he stamps his foot hard enough. Tunnel for getting out victims? Or do they attack when caravans leave, stage it like a raider attack and kidnap them without the chance of witnesses. Not gonna bother sleeping here anyway.) The terminal inside is more insipid bullshit on the SAFE test and the amenities available. 

 

“Second guard inside the walls,” MacCready calls lowly from where he’s leaning in the doorway. “Just left the house next door.”

 

No one pays attention as they slip inside. Nate eyes the cell in the house’s atrium. Steel doors with reinforced windows. Handcuffs on the table and what small town needs an interrogation table that’s screwed to the floor? More and more resources being pooled into a town too small and too young.

 

There’s a report on one desk --  _ SAFE v11.3 Report: 28% failure rate, delta -1% (need more data samples) _ followed by a list of “failures.” Ghouls throw off the results more. But the Slog--he taps his finger over the name. Wiseman, come from the generation after the Pre-War. Knows that three more there are Pre-War. He’s seen and used better methods.

 

( _ Not that Des ever wanted to share, too careful to tip off Institute spies _ .) He hopes for her sake that the models weren’t found at Switchboard.

 

“So can I ask?”

 

“About what.” He checks to make sure the kid’s watching the door before using the terminal in this room.

 

“Why you bugged out during the test. I’ll admit, these guys are idiots. Too busy to sell their brand of paranoia to see they’ve got nothing on you. Didn’t even check me or Piper, not even for  _ weapons _ , and I know you’re carrying more than anyone I knew in the Gunners.”

 

“Recognized what they were trying to do. Or at least--the test.” Heavy security in here though. The password on the terminal isn’t coming along too easily, someone knew what they were doing.

 

“Hey, I was never a fan of school either--”

 

“That’s just it. It’s...a General Occupational Aptitude Test.” There. Took another reboot but he got it. Already he can see several memos lining up on screen.

 

“A  _ what _ ?”

 

“Knew someone who grew up in a vault. They called it the GOAT test. Used it for job placement. Not synth identification. They know it doesn’t work right, too. Keeping a log and everything. See what works. What doesn’t. It’s the false-positives that worry me.”

 

There’s silence, the faint whiff of nicotine. He skims the personnel files. Everyone’s got a past, but these people have a vendetta. Piper might be able to get along fine without this, though. He skips back to the internal memos.

 

The most recent entry is a draft, cutting off in the middle but he catches the words Compound in capitals and a conspicuous fisherman at Mystic Pines’ Pond. Closest body of water. Could comb the perimeter, looking for a man of that description, ask if he’s seen anything--

 

Behind him, MacCready stamps hard on the butt of his cigarette.

 

He logs out and slides away from the desk just in time for a man in a greaser jacket similar to the one Asshole was wearing at the gate.

 

“Sir? Can you collect your...friend from the storehouse? She’s causing a disturbance.”

 

“Christ, Piper.”

 

No one’s dead when he arrives, but it’s tense. A mousy looking woman in a bright green dress barrels past him, leaving a weary looking doctor and the worst reporter in the Commonwealth. Piper looks too pleased with herself.

 

“Hey, Nate. They’re right about the prices here, might have used some of your money I borrowed to buy more junk food, hope you don’t mind.”

 

“Already had your fill of this place, Pipsqueak?”

 

She makes a show of humming and hawing, eyes rolling around the room, conveniently looking everywhere but the doc that’s either too polite to glare or still trying to act like nothing’s wrong in the SAFEst Place in the Commonwealth. “It’s alright, but I’ll always be a city girl at heart, you know?”

 

“Can’t take you anywhere nice.”

 

She grins, swaggering past him. Outside, she slides him a look and he steps in time with her.

 

“So they  _ really _ don’t like synths. Or reporters. Or Diamond City. Or fun in general, I guess.” She absently slips some gumdrops into his pocket, a ball of crinkled paper mixed in. “Still, they’re all really looking forward to getting all your friends and family in here. Found that note in the garbage but the word they like to use is  _ exploit. _ Also some pointed reminders about not talking about the nefarious synths or the Commonwealth boogeyman they’re all hung up about. Didn’t stop ‘Penny’ from gabbing about how the Compound was doing what was ‘necessary’ in taking care of Stockton’s caravan.”

 

“Yeah, the terminal mentioned it might be nearby.” He touches her arm, making them both stop. “I told you to keep it casual. No direct questions.”

 

She holds her hands up defensively. “I was just asking about gossip!  _ She’s _ the one who got out of hand. Even spooked the doc into ignoring me when I asked about this weird mole I got on my hand, see it’s right--oh, nevermind it’s just a freckle. False alarm.”

 

“Trouble,” MacCready hisses, and Piper’s about to snap something back when man in a patched suit strides up.

 

“You know,” and Nate can’t even place the accent, voice too soft and pitched too low. Vowels shaped strangely. But the smile is familiar, not quite reaching the eyes, shaped too much like a threat. “It’s not very neighborly to go poking around into the lives of well-meaning folk.”

 

“If this is about having to sit through Penny’s rant, I take my apologies in snack foods.” Piper holds out one delicate hand, face set to ‘ignorant city girl.’

 

The man’s smile gets slicker. “I know you  _ think _ you’re doing the right thing,” continuing like Piper hadn’t said anything, attention still directed at Nate. “Just don’t make any rash decisions you’ll regret.”

 

“Or else,” Piper stage whispers at his elbow. The look he gives her is withering underneath his tight smile.

 

“Always good advice,” Nate agrees. Waits until the man walks away, turning slightly to MacCready as he murmurs, “Start walking towards the gate. Take Piper with you. Wait for me by the road.”

 

Piper makes a face at him, obviously not thrilled at having to spend any alone time with MacCready.

 

“ _ Wait. _ That’s an order for you, too, Piper _. _ We’re all walking into a den of well-intentioned extremists. Figure you’d appreciate having an extra gun to help us through it.” He nods back at Honest Dan.

 

She slumps. “Ugh. Fine. Just don’t be long. You might be short one merc.”

 

MacCready smirks, “After you, Miss Piper.”

 

“ _ Don’t _ .”

 

\--

 

Dan is eager to get going, agrees to wait out by an old ruin on the other side of the pond on the promise of scouting the other half of the lake for signs of a fisherman.

 

“So what, we’re just going to walk around this entire thing, in plain view of Covenant. How is that not suspicious?”

 

“Figure with the fading light and the new caravan that’s just pulled in, they’re too preoccupied to keep an eye on us.”

 

It’s a big one too, a group that isn’t keen on being on the road when night falls. Piper shudders, watching the sun sink under the horizon.

 

“Just us and the crazies now. Too late to go back for a flashlight?”

 

“Yeah, my scope wasn’t made for night spotting. I prefer to be inside nice, cozy  _ walls _ like every other sane person.”

 

Nate’s ahead of them, ready to switch on his night goggles as soon as it’s dark enough. “All I hear is whining and not enough scouting. You sure you two want to be left behind in Covenant of all places?”

 

A synchronized  _ No… _ comes from behind him. Heated grumbling that sound suspiciously like  _ Old geezer _ .

 

“That’s what I thought.”

 

\--

 

“Are you… trying to seduce me?  _ For maps? _ ” 

 

The man--who so far is still trying to pass himself as John Doe--sets down his glass of wine carefully. Wets his lips. Folds and unfolds his hands in front of him. Nate wants to smack his stupid sunglasses off.

 

“You have very beautiful… atlases.”

 

“Oh my God. You can just  _ pay for them _ .”

 

“No, no!” John takes his hand, clasping it tightly between both of his. “I want you to make me  _ new _ maps. Special maps.”

 

“That you’ll pay for. With caps.”

 

“Now see,” he leans forward, and it bothers Nate that the shades are dark enough that he still can’t see the man’s eyes. “I’m doing all this because I want a relationship.” He grips Nate’s hand tighter when the ghoul jerks back. “A partnership.”

 

“I…” 

 

This is Leslie’s fault. 

 

Get back in the game, she said. Nora would want you to move on, she said. And if you don't do something about your obvious crush on Nick Valentine, I know a nice young man you can discuss classics with, she said.

 

He even likes ghouls, she said.

 

And when it turned out to be John, a funny liar he’s run into a fair amount of times in the wastes, a lover of literature and Pre-War oddities, he actually dared to hope for something that had never actually been on the table.

 

He blows out the candle. Leslie, still an Old World girl at heart, thought they’d be romantic. Nate just needed them on hand in case the power went out again. All that’s left is a lantern he forgot to put out earlier, it’s flame flickering around the wick.

 

_ Enough of this _ .

 

“I’m an independant contractor,” he tries to start. It feels ridiculous after all the expectations of the evening.

 

“And you’re a good man. Which is why I want you to meet the family.”

 

He winces. “Can we lose the dating theme already if that isn’t what you’re here for? You could have just told me this was about your work if you wanted to talk privately.”

 

“Except it’s not just about work.” John slips his glasses off, but it’s too dark with the light behind him to see his face. “You...care about people. Even when they’re shit to you. Also doesn’t hurt that you can be the biggest badass in the room. And I know you’re not charging for the maps as much as you should, because it’s not just business when it comes to knowledge. You  _ want _ people to know about the world, to give them strength through that.”

 

“So are you here for the maps or not?”

 

“Yes. And no. Honestly, I’m here for you. Like I said, you’re a good man, Nate. Everyone’s heard of the Ranger.”

 

“ _ Ugggghhhh. _ ” He moves his bowl of noodles out of the way to thunk his head hard on the table.

 

“The armor is very sexy.”

 

“ _ Don’t _ .”

 

“Okay, I’ll be honest. This whole date thing? Not really my idea, although I did enjoy myself. You’re very charming in a cute nerd kind of way. Leslie’s a sweet girl and I  _ really did _ want to talk to you one on one in complete privacy. And alsomaybecheckoutyourbookcollection.”

 

“Why is it always books? Or maps? Or Leslie?”

 

“Because you’re a man of refined tastes and everyone can see it,” John chirps. “Seriously, though. I think we could work well together. You can show my fam a thing or two and you get...um.”

 

“So after all of this, you want to finally talk about your ‘family.’ Jesus, John. You know I used to think you were a slaver? I still don’t know what the hell you guys do.”

 

“We help the helpless. People who… don’t really have a lot of friends out here, Nate. People who have been abused and are risking more than just their lives to get out.”

 

“Before you continue, how much of this did Leslie coach you through? Which parts did she say should appeal to my so-called hero complex?”

 

John lets go of his hands to hold them up in surrender. Nate can still make out his cheesy grin in the wan light. “Hey, she didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t figured out myself. I love doing my homework on such a fascinating subject.”

 

He’s blushing. Or at least he would be blushing if his blood vessels worked like that anymore. 

 

Shoving away from the table to put some distance between them, he heads over to his heavy-locked cabinet. “Just tell me what you want specifically so I can get you out of here faster.”

 

“Like I said,” and Nate forces himself not to backhand the guy across the face. Didn’t even hear him follow up behind him. “I want something a little more special. We’re looking for someone with the expertise in routes outside of the Commonwealth with areas that are safe for people looking for a new life. We’ve got maps already but what we really need is a guy like you.”

 

John reaches into the small pocket of his shirt for a card and hands it to Nate. In near darkness, he can’t see if there’s anything written on it, but there’s a blocky shape embedded into it. “You’re right to be worried, I don’t blame you. Hell, it’s a pretty good trait to have in my line of work. How about you come see what we’re doing, meet some of us and the people we work with? Come to your own conclusions. Ask Old Man Stockton about tour brochures, and he’ll tell you how to find us.”

 

“Tour brochures? Stockton works for you?”

 

“Works  _ with _ us. We kept asking your friend Leslie to join up, but she just points us your way. Said a wandering ghoul would be better help than an agoraphobic one.”

 

He should say something, keep hounding for answers especially now that John’s being a lot more direct than he ever was during the fake date, or hell, than he ever was in any of their previous meetings, but the thought of the date and the cold noodles they shared still hurts. Hurts as much as it did when he realized that he had started thinking of others besides Nora. He wrestled too much with loneliness and heartbreak over her for almost two centuries just to have this be the result of all that courage, of what he had naively called progress. A desperate ghoul who couldn’t read all the obvious signs.

 

_ Look at me now, Nora. _

 

But at least he has options. He might be angry at her for now, but it seems Leslie knows more about John than just as a potential datefriend. Stockton acts like he’s scatterbrained in his old age, but he can’t fool Nate. If he’s helping anyone, even on the side, then they’ve earned the old man’s trust.

 

And John…

 

Well. Nate can believe that he feels bad. For as long as Nate’s known him to be a liar, even it hasn’t been all  _ that _ long, he’s never lied maliciously to him. Some traitorous part still likes him. Even trusts him.

 

“Anything else I need to know before you send me into what be a trap?”

 

John smiles, and it’s a smile that Nate will later learn that can never quite be changed. The second most recognizable thing about the man besides the trademark sunglasses. “I wrote a symbol on the back. It means...ally. Friend, if you’re still feeling generous after tonight. If you’re smart--and I know you are--you might be able to figure out the others.”

 

\--

 

Danger.

 

Hard to see with night set in as it is, but it makes him lose focus on the old man who’s been yelling at them to clear out of his fishing hole for the last five minutes. Won’t even let Piper get a word in edgewise. 

 

He gestures for Honest Dan, waiting at the top of the hill, in the shadow of the decrepit retirement home, to get down to the bank with them.

 

“Anyway, that’s nice, we’ll be leaving now.”

 

“We are?” asks Piper, right before Nate jumps into the shallow concrete wall going along the three main pipes leading out of Lexington. 

 

The old man howls at him, “You’re scaring the fish away!”

 

“And you’re going to get us all killed by raiders or worse, you old fart!” Piper hisses back at him. “Nate, get out of there!”

 

“Yeah, boss. Ghoul or not, I wouldn’t trust most bodies of water.”

 

He ignores both of them, sloshing through the muck and grime-- _ and there go a dry pair of boots _ . The first pipe is blocked off with the standard grate, a buildup of gray muck collecting at the bottom. Obviously hasn’t been moved in a few centuries. The second one though--

 

He doesn’t have to lift the dead vines to see the faint red glow coming through.

 

“Found it.” He makes his way back to the wall, gestures for his companions to climb down. “Let’s do this now.”

 

Piper, good girl that she is, hops to it, even trusts him to catch her on the way down. MacCready is wanting none of it, loudly despite his previous paranoia about drawing too much attention to themselves at night, but crawls down anyway, groaning when the mud squelches obscenely underfoot.

 

At least Dan takes it all in stride. Nate can respect that, although that’s probably more experience and age than his own hired help has going for him.

 

He’s hoping this is just one entrance. If their runner was having trouble getting in because of one fisherman, they probably didn’t have an escape route to rely on in case of emergency. If he can’t talk his way and Amelia’s freedom out of this, than at least he can try the fish-in-a-barrel approach.

 

The turrets are concerning, though. And the higher position these idiots have set up, along with tight corners and other hiding spots. 

 

His people are currently backed into their own kill spot, a broken tunnel they can just throw a grenade through.

 

He and Piper made a deal: she goes first in case they’re okay to talk it out. He goes second in case they aren’t. MacCready and Dan hang back a step, just out of sight

 

“We’re just here for answers about Stockton’s caravan. Nothing more.”

 

It might be the sight of a small woman, flanked only by one merc, that sets them at ease. Probably think that they might have an advantage if things go south. In any case the man sighs like it’s all inevitable, a breach in security, but agrees to take them to a Dr. Chambers.

 

“She’ll know what to do with you,” he threatens.

 

Nate doesn’t try casting a glance back at the mercs. If Dan’s got a nickname for being honest about his work, if he’s hung out this long on a dangerous mission like this, then he’ll stay where he is as backup. MacCready though. He still can’t get a good read on him. Was a little too quick to take shit pay with a starting price that nearly made Nate wince. Complains a lot, almost enough that the ghoul thinks he might bug out while he’s sleeping. Seemed the opposite of averse to the small ‘discount’ Nate took from Covenant’s store. Makes him wonder if he’ll take whatever Nate’s carrying if he does leave.

 

He’s young, but at least willing to listen to some old ghoul grumble about justice in a world burnt to ash. Nate’s soft enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

He shakes the thought off for now, leaves them behind as he follows the young reporter and the guard into the depths of a worryingly complex system of walkways and paths. These don’t look like standard maintenance tunnels. There are also a lot more guards than he’s okay with, some outright hostile, some worryingly welcome, tipping their crew hats at Piper. She curls her lip up in disgust and keeps walking.

 

Dr Chambers is old. Not just wasteland old, but  _ old _ . Bad posture and extra socks peeking out from under her lab coat. But she’s--healthy, is what he thinks. Like she’s lived a good life relatively free from radiation.

 

_ Vault dweller? _ The Vault-Tec logo is printed just above the coat’s upper pocket.

 

She looks at him, not at Piper who’s standing just in front of him. “So the one investigating Stockton’s caravan has arrived. Do you even know that his supposed daughter is in all likelihood a synth?” She shakes her head balefully, a hand coming up to brush away any response they might have. “No matter. Let me be upfront about this. There are two ways this meeting can end. We come to an agreement...or there will be violence.”

 

_ Yeah, no shit, lady. _ “You really don’t want to start a fight with me,” he growls. His choice of weapon for the evening is a combat shotgun Tom made just for him. Shoots plasma bullets.

 

“Agreed. Killing would be...a costly endeavor.”

 

“Doubt it’s stopped you before.” It’s obvious the dark spots on the floor to the left of him are recent.

 

“What would  _ you _ do if your family was destroyed by a synth, right in front of you, when you were but a child?” she barks at him. “Would you just roll over and accept it? Or would you do something about it?”

 

“Lady,” and he wishes she could see the nasty grin he’s got for her. “My family had the sudden death of nuclear war. But yeah, I’ve had friends, people I considered in my old age to be family, hurt  _ and _ killed by the Institute. By the synths they use to do their work. You don’t see me coping by kidnapping people off the streets and murdering them when things go wrong. What’s your fucking excuse?”

 

Her frown grows tight and ugly, a sneer at him or the memory. “In Diamond City, a lifetime ago, my parents and eight others were massacred by someone. At first we thought the maniac was human. But that was the day we learned of the Institute’s latest creations--the synths. So you know. You  _ should _ know that as long as the Institute walks invisibly amongst us, they’ll control us with the fear  _ they’ve _ created--”

 

“Wait,” he holds up a hand. Points at her. “Chambers?  _ Rosalyn  _ Chambers? What the fuck are you doing down here?”

 

She doesn’t look happy to be interrupted mid-monologue. “I’ve been completing my life’s work, obviously! A test to root these monsters out of the shadows so they can be extinguished. Isn’t that a goal worth fighting for, Nate? We finally have a fighting chance in this war.” She smiles, a mad look with her face obscured by the rusty welding goggles strapped tightly to her face. Like he’d be proud of her.

 

“A war?” He feels hot all over. Even without the helmet’s goggles, he thinks he’d be seeing red.

 

“You know what it’s like.  _ Hundreds  _ of victims over the years. We’ve both known survivors. We are them. And so many other tragedies that may be their responsibility as well. You don’t think Leslie would have just...disappeared without a trace if they didn’t have something to do with it.”

 

He breathes in slowly. Lets it go. His fingers go the clasps on his helmet, clumsy and thick.

 

“You---”

 

Her smile hasn’t flinched at all, still bright and shining. ( _ The most admiring student of Leslie Mathews _ .)

 

“You  _ fucking _ idiot.”

 

Piper flinches at the volume, eyes wide as she peeks back over her shoulder at him. Rosie looks gutted.

 

“You think you can just steal a fucking _...Vault test _ and pretend no one will fucking notice? Even if I didn’t know you, if I didn’t  _ remember _ how you used to take others’ work and use it to make Leslie  _ notice you _ , I’d at least know what a fucking GOAT test sounds like, Rosie. So don’t fucking bring her into this, you brat! And don’t fucking accuse the Institute of every kidnapping when you’re  _ just _ as guilty as them right now.”

 

He only stops when he sees the tale-tell sign of the guard flicking the safety off his gun. Rosie stands at the top of the stairs, weight gone from her limbs.

 

“Psychology...Psychology  _ does _ work!” she stammers.

 

“Which you never fucking studied,” he snarls. “Always skipping school, missing work. How many times did you try tricking Leslie into doing your work? Paying off the other kids to do it for you?”

 

“I have--” she flaps her hand at a terminal in the corner, her frail form shaking, shaking. “Autopsies can confirm--”

 

“So you can’t even figure out any non-lethal way in case you’re wrong? Bet it didn’t even matter, though. Always a bloodthirsty little bitch, weren’t you? Egging the boys on to get into fist fights with each other.  _ Asking me for all the juicy bits in my adventure stories _ .” 

 

She’s shaking her head, swiveling it back and forth real slow. Edges away from him as he advances. Makes a note of Amelia in his vision as he reaches the next landing.

 

“We just need more data. There’s something--something in the questions. More test subjects to narrow it down,” she says faintly.

 

“I think you need to stop this madness, Rosie. Before anyone else gets hurt, if you catch my meaning..”

 

“ _ I  _ think you need to go.” There’s a rifle cocked at his hand. Then a snick of a pistol behind him.

 

“Try it, bucko,” Piper warns.

 

The intervention brings some control back to the doctor. Her voice is dead, calm, almost far away. “We can end this age of paranoia. Together. You need to understand, Nate. You  _ should _ understand. Leslie--Leslie got hurt too. You used to care so much about her. About the people you found in the wastes, broken like us. You  _ cared _ , Nate.”

 

“I do. Which is why you’re going to give me Amelia. Then we’re all going to walk out of here.” But no, it just makes her shake her head harder, hair flying out of her bun.

 

“I can’t--I can’t do that Nate. Either one of us is killed, or--You let me prove it. I can cut her open right here and show you.”

 

“Not an option.”

 

She laughs thinly. “Yes it is. It’s like you said, there’s always a choice. You just couldn’t pick the right one.”

 

A click to his right, then--

 

The crack of a small firearm. Piper aimed for the shoulder, but this man has had training. Doesn’t drop his gun, but it’s a near thing. Nate grabs the barrel of the rifle, slamming the butt of it back into the man’s face.

 

Rosie, though, she tries to tackle him. Withered fingers like claws, scraping at his collar, trying to catch at the latches. She’s light enough to pick up and throw at the low wall. She hits her head, but he heard the dull crunch of a bone in her torso. She’s almost mute from the pain, mouth wrenched open in a gasp she can’t keep in. 

 

Piper fires again, hits the guard in the chest. No armor is good at this range, he sees the bullet exit right through. Puts another one in his face.

 

“You should have--” Rosie’s gasping at him. Trying to claw her way towards him, hip weirdly tilted, broken.

 

He puts her out of her misery with a dull ache in his chest. Feels cold and numb and sick with guilt. Rosie was sweet at her best. Righteous even. There was talk of her becoming mayor, but that stopped when she left town, after Nick showed up with a disheveled Maisie. Didn’t want--

 

_ Too many dead kids these days. _

 

“ _ Nate! _ ” Amelia is sobbing, crouched low to the floor in her cell. “Please!”

 

There’s the thud of boots down the hall, but he can hear gunfire in the distance. They’re scrambling.

 

He needs to hurry.

 

Rosie’s got the password on her and as soon as Amelia’s cell door slides open, she almost makes a run for it.

 

“Don’t,” he growls, catching her at the arm. He dips into his bag for another pistol, ammo. She’s thinner, cheeks hollowed and pale. She’s an advanced copy that needs to eat, but most likely they didn’t bother.

 

“You stay behind us,” he orders. Piper’s already holed up behind cover, using the grenades he had slipped her before they came in. “Fire at their chest, but only if they get close, alright?”

 

“I know how to shoot!” she whines, fingers shaking as she’s handed the gun. “I’ve used shotguns, I just need--”

 

“ _ Stay behind! _ ”

 

It’s slow work, too many corners and heavy turrets bearing down on them. Intense enough that he nearly takes MacCready’s head off.

 

“Hey!” Dodges in time, hat taking the sweep of a bayoneted shotgun. “Cavalry’s here, jackass.”

 

“Fall back, then.”

 

They stumble over corpses, both human and machine, barely looting the remains. Dan tries to thank him when he sees a shivering Amelia, but when she runs right past them, Nate has to brush him off, doesn’t even bother counting the caps Dan slips him.

 

She at least has the decency to wait by the shore. 

 

“I can’t--It’s all--” she hiccups, shoulders twitching violently. 

 

“ _ Hey _ ,” he murmurs. Softly, gently, hand reaching for her. He’s still in the water, but he could still touch her from here. But she shakes her head. Sobs harder.

 

“It’s my  _ fault _ .”

 

“No it’s--Hey.” She falls into him, he catches her. There’s splashing behind him, but it’s Dan that approaches him first, makes out a salute before walking off.  _ We’re done here _ , it says.

 

“It’s okay,” he soothes. Let’s her cry all over him. Takes her weight and drags her over to a drier part of the shore. Piper and Mac give them some distance, a little higher in elevation, behind the cover of trees.

 

“It’s my fault,” she cries again. “They killed Percy and Valerie and. And. They just wanted  _ me _ . I got it wrong. I’m not right.”

 

“You did everything right. They were kidnapping and murdering before you got there. Plenty of humans who’ve failed their test and got killed too.”

 

“But you know I’m--”

 

“Shh.” He holds her tighter. “Just cry for now.”

 

She does. And if she’s too loud, she’s got him, Piper and Mac chatting quietly behind them. No one comes looking. No old fisherman to yell about scaring away fish.

 

She cries herself out, too exhausted to keep crying. He asks if she wants to stay a bit longer.

 

“No--I...I don’t know,” she answers. She turns her head in the direction of Lexington behind them. Raider territory. Before them, there’s paranoid cultists.

 

“I’ve got some mines. Saw some beds in that old ruin up the hill. We’ll keep you safe.”

 

“Safe,” she mutters. SAFE.

 

“You did everything right,” he tells her again.

 

“It doesn’t feel--You know that’s not--Why did they have to kill my friends, Nate? They didn’t--They didn’t even take the test. Why did they have to--Why did they make a whole town just to--to lure people in and, and kill them? Why’d they kill them if they weren’t data? They kept--they kept doing that. Calling humans false positives. Calling victims data. Why? Why…”

 

She sounds like she’s going to start crying again, but after a few moments, when the tears don’t come again, he starts again.

 

“On the day the bombs fell… I had this speech. It was going to be the first of many, if it went well. Had a bunch of places that wanted to me, someone they liked to call a war hero, to talk to other veterans. Didn’t like to be called a war hero. Lot of reasons for that. Didn’t really believe in the war effort. Only wanted a paycheck. A mercenary with rank, I used to call myself on the bad days. There’d been a lot of bad days. Used to think they only used words like hero to mean that I gave something up.” He pats his knee for emphasis. “But I believed in the veterans who saw the things I saw. Didn’t matter who you were going in, the military had their ways of...shaping you, I suppose. We all some...things we wanted to forget. But needed to talk about. Never got to give the official version of that speech though, but I’ve given...variations of it over the years. Just the most important parts. Wanna hear it?”

 

She shrugs, face buried in uncomfortable armor that’s covered in blood and brain matter. 

 

“People...we do a lot of awful things for three things: Power, money, and belief. And fear? Fear can make good men go to war. Turn us into the monsters we fight. Because war never changes.”

 

Amelia sniffs, voice muffled. “That sounds like an awful speech.”

 

“Yeah,” he laughs. “Yeah. Everyone--We were all so scared. We won at Alaska, we were still fighting at home, but we all knew we were going to die. It was just a matter of time. It...helped, to hear others going through the same. To let ourselves be scared in healthier ways. Ways that didn’t hurt people.”

 

He sits her up, carefully, just to look her in the eye. “Rosie, the Compound, Covenant? They were scared, which is normal. Which is okay to be. But they hurt people. Told themselves it was okay to hurt people because they were at war. And justifying things with war? That’s a dangerous line to walk. I had friends put into torture camps because of the way they looked, where their family was from. Said it was because evil was in their blood.”

 

“I know I’m not--” she stops before he can tell her, glancing up the hill. “I know… synths aren’t the problem. That it’s the Institute. Synths just...They’re only considered tools by the scientists. Only doing what they’re told.”

 

“Sounds a lot like me,” he jokes. It falls flat. “Sounds like all of us, on any side. Of any war. We did what we did because were ordered to. Not because we wanted to.”

 

“Except the ones who--” she stops. Bites her lip. “Except the ones who want to.”

 

“Yeah. That happened too. Still does, unfortunately.”

 

“I don’t. I don’t like it.”

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

“Okay,” she breathes, letting out air she had been holding in. “Okay.” Nods like she wants to be sure.

 

She has to help him up, younger and sprier than him. Piper and Mac stand ready by the time he’s up, taking his time to reach them.

 

“So. Retirement home filled with skeletons. Yay or nay?”

 

The response is in the “Uh” and “Ew” category.

 

“Creepy ruins it is, then. Pick a room, clear off the bones, I’ll set up the traps.”

 

Climbing the rest of the way up, Piper falls into step with him.

 

“War never changes, huh? You ever gonna get new material, Nate? Starting to sound like a broken record.”

 

“Still true before and after the Bomb, so… No. Don’t see why I should.”

 

She laughs at him, arm flinging out to tap him on the shoulder playfully. He grunts like he’s in pain.

 

“Careful, I’m old.”

 

“Then you’ll fit right in with all the other dead old people!”

 

MacCready checks in later, uses the excuse of trapping the place with him.

 

“Look, uh.” The boy coughs, the light of the fire Nate lit in the atrium to grill up some salted brahmin meat shows a pained expression on his face. “I’m sorry, about. Um.”

 

He gesticulates uselessly. Nate waits him out patiently.

 

“The kid. Your kid. Piper said you had to put her down.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Rosie. He pushed the ache down, but he plans to drink the guilt another day. Somewhere quiet. Not something he wants to go to Hancock with. Being with him might make it worse.

 

“No, she… She wasn’t  _ mine _ .”

 

“Yeah! No. Um. I knew that. Piper said you like kids. Said you practically adopted her and her sis when you first met. I mean, I figured. What with the weird insistence to find Amelia and not care about the money, man, I mean.” MacCready winces. Sighs. “I just. I have a kid myself, I can’t--I don’t want to imagine what you’re going through. But I could understand. And. I’m not good with words.”

 

He doesn’t really know what to say. He’s touched though, that the kid’s trying even when it’s obvious how uncomfortable he is. Really trying to maintain eye contact and not running in the opposite direction now that it’s awkward--for him, at least.

 

He starts. Stops. Starts again. “She--I let myself be angry. Had to be. Or at least. That’s what I forced myself to be? Called her all sorts of things in the end there, if Piper told you that, too.” He looks into the fire, lets it singe the the cones and rods in his eyeballs. Lets the pain sit there. “But. She had been a good kid. She did care. About people. About keeping the people she cared about safe. Didn’t want anyone else to go through what she did.”

 

But.

 

It hurts. It hurts because what if he helped with what she tried to do down there? Her favorite story was the one about the Courser. A hard fight. A legendary fight, even if he had to drag himself back in pieces. Always insisted on the ending, that he escorted the other victim back home, where the man ran into the arms of his husband. A family. A romantic ending instead of just the bloody, heroic one.

 

Did she ever figure out that that man was a synth, too? If she did--did she change the ending? Did she change him? An actual human, not some radiated creature that survived long past his due date? He’s heard the retellings.

 

Thankfully, MacCready interrupts him from his thoughts. “Hey. I’m. I’m not the best at talking these things out but. I’m here. If you want me to be. That’s. It’s cool. You’re, um. You’ve been pretty cool with me too, so. I appreciate it. I can respect a guy that pays full price even after talking me down.”

 

“Money’s pretty important out here. Hate to be the guy that shorts you on already low prices. At first, I figured you were just doing it as a con, had it happen before. Low price for a hired gun who robs you for more when they get you somewhere isolated. But now I’m thinking it’s about something else.”

 

MacCready glares into the fire. “Yeah. You’re right. It  _ sucks _ , though. Because of those two assh--those two  _ idiots _ you saw me talking with at the Third Rail. Winlock and Barnes. Hounding me for months and it’s been driving off clients. No one wants to touch me once they learn I used to run with the Gunners. They’re just better armed raiders, but deserters? They’re seen as dangerous.”

 

“Because they have the habit of collecting on a corpse after all the money they spent on training them.”

 

“Yeah,” MacCready rolls his eyes. “Figured if I get enough caps together, I could buy them out.

 

“But you show up with any amount of money, I wouldn’t put it past them to just shoot you and be done with it anyway.”

 

“Yeah.” He shuts his eyes tightly. “The thought’s occurred to me. Even if I set up a place to meet them, those two could just roll in with the small army they’ve got surrounding them. Unless…”

 

Nate snorts. “Ask me. Then ask Piper about my track record of things I’ve said no to. Says she keeps a list. On her hand.”

 

It takes him a full minute, but finally MacCready looks him dead in the eye. “I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t trust you.”

 

“Got it. I’m in.”

 

The kid looks stunned. “That’s. Wow. I don’t know what to say. Sorry, I just. I haven’t been able to rely on anyone since I was a kid. So far, everyone I’ve met has either tried to rip me off or plant a knife in my back. But you’re...different. I mean, we don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot, but you. Get it. A lot, actually. And I have this funny feeling,” he smiles, dull rotted teeth coming through. “That you actually care what happens to  _ me _ . That’s why I’m asking. So if you really want to help with this, the Mass Pike Interchange is where these guy’s have set up shop. Up on the freeway--turrets, missile launchers, assaultron.”

 

“Jesus.”

 

“I seriously won’t hold it against you if you back out, just because of the assaultron.”

 

“No, I--” He sees Piper in the corner of his vision. Waves at him, then puts a finger to her lips, pointing down the hall. Nods back. “Listen. We get Amelia back first. Stock up on ammo. Maybe hit an old weapons cache for bigger guns. We’ll take care of them soon after.”

 

“Shit! That’s--” MacCready’s grinning wildly. “That’s. Thanks. I mean. Yeah. That’s.” He bows his face, hiding behind his hat. “I appreciate this.”

 

“You can thank me when it’s taken care of.”

 

He meant it. Fighting on skyways aren’t his favorite, but it’s not the first time he wiped out a Gunner camp. Guy just needs enough ammo for the job.

 

But it’s all put on hold when Stockton wordlessly passes him a scrawled note when he finally lets go from the embrace of his adopted daughter.

 

_ Pick up for friend being settled. Pit stop at 111. Maybe Red Rocket? _

 

_ -D _

 

Deacon’s handwriting. Synths can’t copy that (yet)He finds himself breathing a little easier, another tick mark in the Living Friends column.

 

There’s a juvenile map scrawled on the back. At the top is a gear with 111 at the center, the outcropping of a hill to the left with a line pointing towards it with a + along a number of meters. The bottom has a rocket, another pointer and a + on what’s labeled as a cliff.

 

Between those two landmarks, Deacon wrote HOME in a heart.

 

“Trouble?” MacCready asks. He’s a mix of disappointment and worry.  _ Too much of a softie, that one, _ Piper had confided in the morning.  _ I might just be able to like him if he didn’t try too hard at being a jerk _ .

 

“Maybe.” Wouldn’t have sent a letter like this if it wasn’t. They could’ve sent Glory or Tommy, but if he’s reaching out to him, an exile…

 

“We’re going to take care of the Gunners, but--”

 

“Hey, no. Family. Family’s important.”

 

“...Yeah.” Even if they’re dead. Even if they’re not speaking to him.

 

He still spends all his caps on ammo, though. Sends Piper off with the promise that Nick’s gonna be just fine. No, really, he’s not just saying that to get rid of her. Nat needs her back by now. (It’s that last one that gets her hoofing it. Amelia may not be much younger than her, but she’s got the same problem of looking out kids as he does. Got too teary eyed at seeing her back with her father.)

 

“Just a pit stop,” he assures MacCready, who he found out does not like to be called Mac.

 

  
“Fingers crossed,” the kid replies. He falls in step with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nate's got low charisma but has unique companion perk of people already liking him before even meeting because he's what deacon would call "a big beautiful distraction"
> 
> he's got high endurance and luck tho


End file.
